We are attempting, even today, to escape the confines of this world and arrive with engines roaring and orbits trailing behind us at the limits of the universe. I long for this day, and when it comes, I will have only a lingering reluctance and regret in leaving behind the already infinite wealth of worldly aspects, studies, and people. I want to glance backward at our star system as we leave its influence to investigate even deeper mysteries; I want to see for myself the elusive centerpiece of our galaxy, brilliant and ever enigmatic; I want, most of all, to answer that one question that both plagues and transcends our time – what’s out there?
So many fundamental questions like these linger about the cosmos that we inhabit. This is a frontier that still today eludes the grasp of even the most intrepid and ingenious of men and women. The vast territory that is space remains largely uncharted, its outer limits unknown but to theory and imagination, despite the best efforts of scientists and explorers throughout the millennia of human history.
A better understanding of the hostile environment of space must be grasped in order to develop means to counter and alleviate issues while operating in its midst. But to gain this better understanding, we must make forays into space itself to conduct experiments and relay results. We must utilize practical methods to discover truth; we must understand truth to develop practical methods. This is a distinctly Isocratean problem, and it requires an Isocratean solution.
One of the largest barriers to space activity and exploration is the sheer cost associated with the planning and execution of a mission – manned or unmanned, local or far-flung. The cost of a launch vehicle that injects a spacecraft into orbit can range anywhere between 50 million USD and 150 million (depending on the mass of the payload to be transported). The entire cycle of researching, developing, and constructing a spacecraft and sustaining its operation could demand a budget of over 1 billion USD.
These enormous costs are often offset by government-based funding (e.g., the 2010 NASA budget tops 18 billion USD), which is currently a necessary but unhealthy dependence. The recent global economic downturn placed great strain on annual budgets, and space agencies throughout the world suffered numerous setbacks and cancellations. As a result, the industry is inordinately sluggish and progress is often haphazard, subject to the whims of politicians and their incessant campaigning and posturing.
How can we address this unhealthy dependence? The Isocratean answer is clear: sever it.
To achieve this, the space sector must establish a measure of fiscal self-sufficiency. There must be a motivation for space exploration and pioneering that melds both scientific pursuit and commercial enterprise: an entrepreneurial and venture capital motive. I would like to see a burst of advancement and innovation in space technology that can rival the dot-com boom of the 1990s in information technology and internet-based fields. I want to help spark an interest in space so intense that a hub for the space sector as iconic as Silicon Valley can be created and sustained.
Hence, the primary task of engineers like myself should be to develop technology that reduces the cost of space activity such that it is accessible to the individual – something akin to the transistor in the field of electronics and computing. Enabling a vested commercial interest in space would provide a basis for a fast-paced, vibrant space industry. Whether this viable interest manifests in mining, tourism, communications, et al. is yet to be seen.
Linda's Isocratean Reflections 
Clearly, the epistemological problem you describe is an Isocratean one. But Isocrates (the skeptic of the value of astronomy) certainly would raise a more basic, ontological problem, would he not? Why seek to operate amidst the stars when we have not yet learned to live well on the Earth?
Speaking strictly from a modern worldview, I wouldn’t have questioned Isocrates’ skeptical stance, as science in antiquity would hardly resemble science in the modern day. (I read a book on Isaac Newton who described him not as the First Scientist, but as the Last Magician. To the author, our modern view of science didn’t coalesce until the era succeeding Newton, i.e. early 1700s and beyond).
To Isocrates, something like astronomy – explaining away the holes in our skies and making constellations out of the stars – probably seemed too frivolous and specific when compared to all the other things citizens could have been occupied with. (i.e. astronomy was not useful in the “practical everyday” from Antidosis).
I do recall that the Greeks made some rather monumental discoveries in astronomy, such as Eratosthenes’ very very accurate measure of Earth’s circumference. Such distances probably meant nothing to the Greeks, just as the however many billion light years to the Andromeda galaxy means nothing to us now… but perhaps someday we can use that knowledge to travel among the stars just as comfortably as we travel on Earth today.
Why seek to operate amidst the stars when we have not yet learned to live well on the Earth?
This is a really interesting question! One way to answer would be that Earth is part of the cosmos… I use the phrase “travel in space” somewhat liberally, but all things considered Earth itself is in space. Perhaps by travelling in the cosmos, we can observe something about the universe and ourselves that was occluded by isolation on Earth.