Why does humanity advance so slowly when it comes to space travel?

I would think after almost 40 years they'd have a resort on the moon or least talking about it, it seems like it won't happen during my lifetime

Well, the main reason is our democracy.... we advanced so quickly in the 60's because a potential enemy was developing it fast, and we wanted to beat them. After we landed on the moon, and the public lost interest, (and noting the cost of things), well, anyone in favor of enhancing the space agency when we had hungry, homeless people were voted out of office - and NASA suffered.
If you can spark the interest of the people, and if the costs can be justified - we'd start to progress again... I hope it happens.

It takes a lot of money for the technology needed for space travel.

Because it costs too much money and the politicians would rather spend money on something like Iraq...Grrr

I think humanity need to concentrate on whats going on closer to home.

It's enormously expensive, it's a long term investment, and there aren't "sure thing" profits. People with money are more interested in a quicker return on investment.

Do you have any idea how expensive it is to bring that much material up to the moon? Why don't we save that task for when we've overcome world hunger and stopped squabbling over oil?

Hi. People lost interest once humans had done it a few times.

Time / Money. Simple as that.

WHAT!!!!!!????? where have you been?

http://www.galacticsuite.com/
expected to open 2012
price 4 million $
something like a 15 week spa vacation / training for space on a tropical island and a 3 night stay in orbit. 15 sunsets a day

http://www.virgingalactic.com/flash.html
first flight expected 2009
price $200,000
3 day training camp for zero G environments



over all, I think SAFETY was the major reason we haven't done it before..... no one wants to be reliable....

cost was the second issue.....
I mean really. do you want to be one of the first to spend 4 million to stay 3 nights in space?

I'll let the extreme millionaires pave the way and hopefully bring down the prices as long as there are no "incidents"

3rd..... I think the governments held onto space for security reasons. We where in the middle of the cold war when space tourism was considered. Space was a great location for strategic weapons arrays and I don't think they wanted people near them..... ever hear of "star wars"?? I mean the REAL deal not the movie.
http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/cold.war/episodes/22/documents/starwars.speech/

(we've actually done really well over all if you ask me.
pluto is 6 billion miles away and we have a ship called voyager 1 almost 4 billion miles past pluto.
covering 10 billion miles of space seems pretty nice to me.
with that distance, we've practically gone from one side of our solar system to the other

distance beyond that becomes a waiting game since we cannot travel ANY where near the speed of light.

new horizons is the newest ship on its way to pluto as we speak. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:NewHorizons2007-08-30.jpg


MY question is why hasn't humanity advanced AWAY from religion? it is the 21st century and all.