..I don't have any problem with the ideas you are describing. I'd be delighted to take a high fidelity VR tour of the moon, to have teleoperation conduct science and construction there. It makes sense to do as much dangerous work as possible with robots rather than people, as long as we don't lose the know how of suporting humans in space.

But looking at the world I inhabit today I don't see the technology needed, or when I do it is either ruinously expensive, crude, or still with an 'under development' sign attached.

I have grown up with overhyped claims on things like VR and 3D tv, and I simply don't have any patience with these concepts anymore. I would be delighted to be shown wrong, but to be totally frank I would have to be SHOWN wrong, I'm not prepared to be convinced of the inevitablility of these things again. I'm afraid that after getting to 2009 and so many predictions from only 2000 failing my mind has been closed on many of these topics. My apologies if this offends.