What's Left to Excite Us?

[dogriver]

I have been reading a lot of books recently, pretty much all I can find,
about the space program, particularly the 1960's. I've wanted to learn
everything I possibly could about this incredibly exciting, in my mind,
part of our history. The best book I've read so far, the author's name
of which escapes me, is A Man on the Moon. What a thrilling book
to read, the vivid detail. The feeling that I was there, on the space
craft, was inescapable.

So we've been to the moon. What's left to excite humanity now? We're not
going back, not any time soon, probably not in my lifetime at any rate.
This fact saddens me. Even the space shuttles are going to be out of
service by September. There are, from what I can tell, no plans to put
the Western world back into space any time soon, except as guests on
Soyuz craft.

So what's left? What can join humanity in its excitement? What will keep
us glued to our TV's? What will inspire rivetting books like A Man on
the Moon? Has the spark of exploration, of discovery, been blown
out? Is humanity's future as boring as it's starting to look? I don't
know, I'm just throwing this out and seeing what happens. It's all kind
of depressing from where I sit.