Creating the Telescopic Humonculi of Ur

In order to create the THoU we must first examine what we need for a successful plan to enter and stay in the realm of our solar system.

So let us make several rules:

1) No need for faster than light travel for thousands of years
2) Even thinking about warp drive will get you executed by the laws of thermo dynamics and conservation
3) Stven Hawking is dead and not even Michu Kaku can figure out how to create a gravity drive

Ok so I've dashed all of the turbo nerd hopes for interstellar flight leaving us constrained to this solar system for the time being.

Phase 1:
Entry Level Space Travel - Creating a market and building infrastructure.
Step 1: The Market:
a: The Market currently only allows for the very wealthy person to enjoy a few moments of weightlessness, or billion dollar companies paying to shoot off some satellites.
b: The Market is a virtual Oligopoly where a few satellite and rocket manufacturers have the majority of industrial, commercial and government contracts.
c: The Market is expanding, though slowly, due to lack of significant regulatory barriers and the new wealth of internet entrepreneurs and high tech specialists and private incentives such as the Ansari X-Prize.

Step 2: The Old Guard
a: NASA pioneered space flight and high altitude/high speed flight in the United States and rocketry in general. NASA has a great deal of territory that as an organization it might feel inclined to protect.
b: The gub'mint will want its piece of the pie and a slew of new taxes will undoubtedly be levvied in the name of protecting consumers or some other such nonsense.
c: NASA will continue to do a great deal of public work and expand our scientific horizons for some time to come and is an important partner in the future of space exploration.

Step 3: The New Guard
a: Blue Origin started by Jeff Bezos (founder of Amazon.com) has begun adopting an approach towards implementing improved cargo carrying in resuable launch vehicles.
b: Virgin Galactic has licensed the design of the next generation of personnel carriers designed by Scaled Composites (winners of the Ansari X-Prize).

The two firms have begun planning their launch sites and business will boom. Outer Space has unlimited potential for wealth. The risk is high, but not unmangeable. One day in the near future the average man will not think it too odd that he could take at least a short hop in to orbit and back for a vacation trip. Several generations down the road we may see the first tourist hotels in orbit. One man has begun testing of his inflatable space station modules, and a scalemodel was successfully deployed. The first stations may indeed be balloons. Reach for the heavens and you just may touch the skies...more to come