RE: Why your kids won't land on the Moon
I am having a hard time seeing that there is anywhere productive to go that makes the risk of flesh and bone worth it. There are no planets anywhere near by that even begin to be habitable. There may be some value in space manufacture but only for a few things that would benefit from the conditions that can only be found in space.
My bet is that technology will get so good at bringing the experience back to us that we won't send flesh and bone. We will live it virtually from here.
And if that one doesn't win, heck, even if it does, my second bet is that "machines" that have become more intelligent than we are, and are more suitable to the environments to be encountered, will be sent out, or will send themselves out, to begin spreading intelligence around the solar system and then beyond.
