If everybody stopped trying to do something the first time they failed, no one would do anything or learn anything. Heck, science is all about systematically a

If everybody stopped trying to do something the first time they failed, no one would do anything or learn anything. Heck, science is all about systematically and methodically failing - that's what the null hypothesis is all about! I almost wrote that we probably won't have permanent outposts in space within any of our lifetimes, but that isn't strictly true, is it, what with Skylab, Mir, and ISS? So let me posit that we will probably never see self-sustaining space habitats (whether in orbit around Earth or on some other body in the Solar System) within our lifetimes, nor within our children's lifetimes. That doesn't mean it isn't a worthy (or feasible) goal. Mankind has wondered about traveling to the moon for hundreds of years (if not thousands), and only recently has it become possible. Living somewhere other than Earth isn't really all that different, insofar that it is an engineering problem and not a scientific one, and unless some apocalyptic disaster strikes us, we have nothing but time in which to figure it out.