"Space travel is utter bilge." - Dr. Richard van der Reit Wooley, Astronomer Royal, British government, 1956

He was right. He did the math - it's not possible to get any significant payload to Earth orbit with a single-stage vehicle propelled by chemical fuels. With multi-stage rockets, it's possible to put a little mass in orbit with a huge booster. That's just low earth orbit. Going further out is even more expensive. Going to the moon required something the size of a 50-story building to move a payload the size of a SUV. Nobody has bothered for over 40 years now.