Gee you really aren't a happy camper today.
NASA's problems with the aging shuttle fleet are well documented, and TBH probably don't need a discussion here. The newer technology offered by the commercial sector getting involved in space flight (though not yet space exploration... or maybe so if you include the failed Cosmos 1) will start to bring down the cost of space flight in general, even for NASA. Then when the commercial sector can deal with getting people in to space, NASA the ESA and others can concentrate on solving the next level of problems, inter solar travel.
It has happened before. In todays societ you might hop on a commercial airliner to get to a conference, but back in the days when there were only two or three specialist companies that made aircraft it was firmly in the hands of the pioneers.
From a personal perspective as well, I don't think society is quite ready to explode in on itself at the moment. If it happens (and remember the last great empire to collapse in on itself was the British, and it has hardly been cataclysmic), I think today it will only really be noticeable by a shift in power, ideas and information, and not by the bloody upsurges of the past.
