Any form of adventure first need perform the "stick a pole somewhere" process (if returning home is expected). At the time, just getting there is an extraordina

Any form of adventure first need perform the "stick a pole somewhere" process (if returning home is expected). At the time, just getting there is an extraordinary act, requiring a supreme effort leveraging advanced technology and taking great risks. Several of the allegedly first discoveries of America (Lief Erikson, Christopher Columbus, others) were content to arrive, take a brief look 'round, and return home. Topping Mt. Everest involved little more than planting a flag and heading back down. Apollo, indeed, planted a pole - and even took time to drive around a little before heading back with a few rocks. Early on, just getting there and coming back intact is hard enough. Get that process down first, then see what else can be done. Methinks the real hindrance to further manned space exploration was: after great effort, we stood someone on a dead rock. Yeah, sorta interesting, but not really compelling; no really dramatic scenery, no minerals worth the cost of mining, too exhausting to think (after that huge effort) of the place of a jumping-off point for an orders-of-magnitude harder effort to go somewhere else not much more interesting when you actually get there. Fascinating, yes, but few people want to contribute vast sums, if not their very lives, to a long boring trip in a can (even with a Morale Officer) to a giant rock quarry. We're not talking the planet Pandora or some such here. And per another poster's detailed list: it's very, very expensive to send a meatbag somewhere.