On January 20th, I witnessed my very first rocket launch — an Atlas V rocket punching into space to drop a communications satellite for the US Navy into orbit 22,000 miles above Earth. That required about 2.5 million pounds of thrust: a very large explosion that must be precisely controlled in order to be successful. It’s not as ambitious as the things that are coming next, but I found it awe-inspiring all the same.

For the last several years, the space program has been in a bit of a lull. The last time NASA sent humans beyond low-Earth orbit was the Apollo program in the 1970s. Since then, the US space agency has focused on sending people to the International Space Station and probes beyond. Actually, the US hasn’t ferried its own astronauts to the ISS since 2011; we’ve hitched rides with Russian cosmonauts aboard the Soyuz. But last April, NASA announced it would begin launching US astronauts itself starting in 2017, and it awarded contracts to Boeing and SpaceX to do just that.

Nasa is looking more ambitious

NASA itself is looking more ambitious since the test launch of Orion, an Apollo look-alike designed to carry humans beyond the ISS — perhaps even as far as Mars. In fact, the agency’s goal is to get to Mars in the 2030s. The agency has been working with new technology, including Microsoft’s Windows Holographic and helicopter drones for Mars; recently, NASA began 3-D printing objects in space. Recently, the agency suggested sending humans to airships floating in Venus’ atmosphere. Obviously, more than a few people are dreaming big.

And it’s not just dreams, either. NASA’s budget rose by 2 percent to $18 billion this year — more than the agency asked for. Almost $3 billion has been allocated to support NASA’s human spaceflight endeavors.