All the good stuff is behind a veil of security. Our super secret unmanned orbiter touched down the other day after a two year mission. Our satellites are the envy of the modern world and we have all the technology we'd ever need to send a manned mission to Mars. Doesn't mean we need to do it though. It's freaking expensive.

There are other initiatives that are more forward looking, I'm talking starships, but that is going to be in the theoretical realm for a long time to come, unless a breakthrough in physics changes the paradigm.

The commercialization of space is the appropriate next step. Government funding only goes so far, until we find something out there that makes it worth the expense of getting there and bringing it back, or colonizing it, it will remain a dark cold vacuum.