The bottom line is...well...the bottom line. People will go into space in a big way when someone can make some money doing it.

I can remember when science fiction space films became "cool." After years of Irwin Allen on TV, and having a deprived childhood largely free of the classic SF movies*, the day I opened up the Popular Science (or was it Popular Mechanics?) and saw the picture article (June 1968) giving me my first look at the movie "2001: A Space Odyssey." I knew right away that the bar had not just been raised, but had gone through the roof.

Few spaceships have graced the movie screen since that were not lovingly coated in plastic model parts, and the Irwin Allen blinking light bulbs on the control panels were gone forever.

*I didn't see "Forbidden Planet" until college, and suddenly realized that Irwin Allen had swiped almost everything he had ever done from this one movie. With love, I'm sure.