The Bottleneck

While one might hear that "getting there is half the fun," another version of the saying is that "getting there is half the battle," and such is certainly true with manned space exploration (and the settlement of the solar system to follow).  Getting off of Earth and to another destination is a bottleneck, not only technologically, but also economically, politically, and otherwise.  The foundation that SpaceX (and others) are starting to build will hopefully lead to a bottleneck that is less and less constricting as time goes by - but it's important to remember that a bottleneck is a potential chokepoint, and so the initial settlements would do well to pursue self-sufficiency as soon as possible.