Given how easily everyone zips around space in SciFi and how many planets they can visit which are 100% like specific parts of Earth (but not Earth as a whole), it is surprising that no extra-solar planets had been certainly observed until 1992 (an early candidate found in 1988 was not confirmed until 2003) and so far nothing made by man has actually left the Solar System.
Voyager 1 at the Final Frontier
For nearly 35 years, NASA’s Voyager 1 probe has been hurtling toward the edge of the solar system, flying through the dark void on a mission unlike anything attempted before. One day, mission controllers hope, Voyager 1 will leave the solar system behind and enter the realm of the stars—interstellar space.
Voyager – The Interstellar Mission from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at Caltech.
NASA – Voyager from the main NASA site.
