20-Year Prospect
Don't believe what the naysayers are naysaying: the space race is still on, it's just evolved from the days of the U.S. and U.S.S.R. shooting a bunch of animals in tin cans into space and seeing which ones survive the longest.
These days, any country that wants to be taken seriously has their own space program. From European nations and Japan, to China and India, and even North Korea (well maybe not), everyone wants a piece of the next big space pie (source).
Even private (and incredibly wealthy) citizens are getting in on the act. Sir Richard Branson of Virgin/Virgin Galactic and Elon Musk of Tesla/SpaceX are both funding ventures to put private citizens in space without the need for governmental oversight. While most taxpayer-funded missions are focused on science and exploration, these entrepreneurs are looking to make space tourism a thing.
As a plus, we're sure they'll be looking for competent pilots—you know, once they figure out how to make a spaceship that doesn't blow up.
As for the United States, the next mission's clear: a voyage to the Red Planet is scant decades away. Right now, NASA's awesomely-named Orion spacecraft is being developed with the goal of putting humans (preferably mostly Americans) on the surface of Mars.
In theory, we should get there sometime in the 2030s—after Orion puts a bunch of astronauts on the surface of an asteroid first. Will you be among one of these crews? Let's just hope that if you are, no one accidentally leaves you there.