We'd be afraid the Chinese will get there first. China has invested enormous emotional belief in the goodness of space travel. It's like our visit to the moon or to that other star I guess you go for nothing if you really want to go that far. It's like the journey is for nothing. Just to make the trip, instead of having the postcards beamed back.
Space travel is like making movies, but it costs more.
You can go out a Byronic urge, but you'll be up there with a Byronic urge and you'll be wearing mylar coveralls swathed in Nike swooshes. We're definitely absurd enough to just do it, but it boils down to economics. If functional nanotechnology took off and really clicked, we'd be in a really interesting situation. The concept of wealth would be meaningless, you could do what you want then. You can take your friends and go to Mars.