This cool interactive video on US Today tracks the progress of the International Space Station through time.  Because it is so incredibly expensive to take anything to space they had to build it piece by piece over more than a decade.  Like the Irish Peace Process and hopefully the Israel-Palestine process, big things have to happen in increments.  Speaking of peace processes, it is great to see that while occasionally the great powers don't get along on Earth, cooperation is the norm in space.  I don't know how much bigger the ISS needs to be- or how much bigger it can be for that matter because there is some danger of it being hit by something- but having a permanent laboratory in space is one of the most impressive achievements in human history.

Futurists have long assumed that humans would eventually colonize space, but it seems like we have, appropriately I think, turned our attention towards more pressing concerns here on Earth.  Unless private space travel becomes more feasible- a possibility given the success of the X-prize- it seems unlikely that more a few dozen people will get to see space in the next decade or two.  Still- if we manage to dodge nuclear war, global warming and super-volcanoes- a future where space travel is as accessible to humans as air travel is now would be a remarkable goal.