When I was a lad, growing up in Dover, England, I knew that I wanted to be a scientist because I believed naively that there was a chance that I could know everything about everything!  Of course, this child-like expectation was soon dashed!  However, inevitably as one learns more and more about this impressive universe, the more one realises how very little one actually knows.  As I am sure you know, this is a common experience for finite human beings - and not just in the sphere of scientific endeavour.  The field of astrophysics finds itself  uncomfortably  in exactly in this place at the moment - after centuries of 'modern ' scientific discovery, there is a realisation that our understanding of the universe is very much  incomplete!
What do I mean by this?  You could say that the culmination of our efforts to understand the nature of what the universe is made of is the European Large Hadron Collider (LHC).  This huge scientific and engineering enterprise (to say nothing of the huge cost) has been devised to try to understand the underlying structure of the sub-atomic world that makes up everything we see around us.  However, it is a huge shock to realise that astrophysicists are now telling us that only 4% of the observed universe is made up of the sub-atomic particles with which we have become familiar.  It's even more of a shock to realise that the other 96% of the universe is made of something the nature of which we know nothing about at all - 'dark energy' and 'dark matter'!  It has been estimated that 73% of the universe comprises dark energy, and 23% dark matter.  These estimates have come principally from the effect this unseen material has upon the large scale dynamics of the expansion of the universe.
It is for this reason that the European Space Agency member states decided to go ahead with a new project, entitled Euclid, at a recent meeting in Paris.  The Euclid spacecraft will be designed to study the nature of these unknown (but dominant) constituents of the cosmos. 
However, don't hold your breath - unfortunately the spacecraft is not due for launch until 2019, when it will take up residence in an operational orbit around the Earth-Sun L2 point.

The recent launch of the SpaceX Falcon 9 launcher, carrying the Dragon supply ship, marks a new era in space operations by a private company.  The Dragon  carried supplies and equipment successfully to the International Space Station, and then deorbited to a nominal reentry and landing in the ocean - a remarkable achievement.  Ultimately SpaceX intends to upgrade their launch services in the future to carry US astronauts to Earth orbit.
Although these remarkable events do open a new era in US space activity, nevertheless it does beg the question as to why we want to do it all again, using the same technology of expendable launch vehicles - this time under the banner of private enterprise.   Surely it is time to move on to new launcher technologies, which will fundamentally reduce the cost of access to orbit.   Afterall, it is this astronomical (pun intended!) cost which is the principal obstacle to the scientific and commercial exploitation of the new frontier of space.  However, this step is going to be technically challenging and consequently very expensive, so I think the revolution will take a while - but it is ultimately the the only route to full exploitation.

Schematic of the SpaceX's Dragon spacecra

Check out this series of 4 short videos of Neil Armstrong in interview.  They are about 15 minutes each, but if you have a spare hour, they are well worth the investment in time.  They can be found at:
http://thebottomline.cpaaustralia.com.au/
As you may know, Neil has avoided media attention, and lived almost as a recluse, in the 43 years since he became the first person to step onto the lunar surface.  Somehow this Australian outfit (CPA Australia) persuaded him to break his silence and tell his own story of this historic event.   One thing that comes over strongly, is his humility despite the fact that his name will remain in the history books for centuries to come!  The first video is about his growing up, and how he developed his interest in aircraft - which shaped his career.  The second and third recount the journey to the moon, and the events on the surface.   The fourth was the most fascinating for me as Neil expresses his views about what is happening now to the US space program.  Also it contains some remarkable footage which, I hope, will finally lay to rest the conspiracy theories that the whole Apollo program was a hoax.
Neil recounts the last 3 minutes of Eagle's descent to the moon's surface using a combination of film footage taken out of the lunar module window, and data from Google moon.  Using the descent trajectory data, and lunar surface detail taken from the Google moon data set, the view from the window has been reconstructed.  The virtual view and the NASA film of the original descent are shown side by side in the video, to show that they are identical (see still pictures below).  The interesting thing is that the original film footage could not have been hoaxed in 1969, because they just didn't have the lunar surface detail available at that time.  Awesome!

Comparison of original NASA film of descent (left) with virtual view (right)derived from trajectory and Google moon data