I don't see where space exploration is grounded. It's a great age for astronomy, data continues to pour in from our various robotic spacecraft, the ISS is aloft, the shuttle continues to shuttle, the Russians launch, the Chinese are launching, the Europeans are launching...

At present, I do not see the wisdom of mounting a mission to Mars. Rather, I would bombard the butterscotch planet with orbiters, landers, and burrowers.

The ideas of abandoning Earth in favor of Mars, colonizing Mars, or terraforming Mars are absurd to varying degrees imo.

Much more feasible, and certainly much more valuable over the coming centuries, would be the development of off-Earth mining and industry on the Moon and/or asteroids.

A wise move indeed would be to reduce the environmental burden on our home planet and begin the movement of harmful activities offworld.

Earth is unique, truly a Garden of Eden. Why anyone would want to live on Mars is beyond me. That remote place is forbidding and inhospitable to a degree none of us can imagine.

With current technology, any journey to Mars would be risky. What is more, any crew making planetfall there might be so weakened by the long journey that they would be incapable of any significant physical activity, and unlikely to regain their vigor either in the harsh environment, or in the tight confines of their lander.

That said, I really would like to see us do it, but I don't think we're ready. Nor will we move our dirty industries to space unless there is some economic advantage or incentive to do so, and it may take decades, or centuries for these needs or motivations to arise.

As we embark on this new millennium, mankind remains too disorganized and too polarized to mount these kinds of large-scale ventures, but I really don't think it's accurate to characterize space exploration as being grounded.

sp