Unrepentent space geeks such as myself, when we complain about the snail’s pace of current efforts to explore the universe beyond our planet’s orbit, are often told that things have to happen slowly because space projects are expensive. And indeed they are – but rarely more expensive than the annual advertising budget for a global corporation, and definitely smaller than the arms budgets of certain nations. There’s plenty of money about, it seems, just a lack of willing on the part of the keepers of that money. Centauri Dreams discusses a new paper on this subject, asking the question ‘How Far A Frontier?’