Space travel reality is stranger than fiction

Prior to space flight, science fiction writers imagined all kinds of horrors awaiting in space, from killer cosmic rays to space hallucinations that would drive you crazy to malevolent aliens that needed to be fought off with psychic cats. I doubt they could have predicted that a combination of budget cuts, poor politically motivated decision making and a dearth of planning would have largely put an end to human space travel. As stories go, reality is the most fantastical of all.