"Farther, faster" ...that would be probably only part of the story, not the biggest one; maybe even hardly existent (the "faster" bit; anything would be "farther")

Ultimately, over longish periods, it will probably just boil down to cheaper for given goals - via much smaller spacecraft for one, or from less redundancy allowed by more reliable electric propulsion; not necessarily faster (as "to reduce explorers' exposure to space radiation" ...we should really consider at which point out it makes no sense to bring them back* - with such realization, transit time would become less crucial, and besides: shielding against the radiation of the reactor itself would probably negate part of mass savings, and the "space radiation" would be similar at most of the destinations ...or much more severe (Jupiter system); OTOH: many chemical rocket fuels can be used as a very good radiation shelter)

And at least for relatively more immediate manned goals, solar might very well turn out cheaper and more straightforward, especially on the scale needed for large manned spacecraft (at least the Russians came to this conclusion already back in the 80s, with then-anticipated state of solar tech, in their Mars plans - which are, really, a distant lingering goal behind many of their efforts & developments over the last few decades)

* Or even: at which point it makes more sense to send almost all of them miniaturised and in deep hibernation, as "frozen" embryos.

80k ft is around 25 km. Space (at least as agreed by most of the planet, the Karman line; including Canada or Australia) starts from 100 km. Should we begin telling people they are, say, near some destination after traveling only 1/4th to it? (and by far the easiest 1/4th, at that)

Well, at least it's better than this submission - still, again "impressive" (while some really curious efforts, from a ~decade ago, went overlooked) ...and done by dozens, possibly hundreds (mass-produced / that's where all the really hard stuff in such ~amateur attempts always came from) meteo balloons every day.

Seriously?
http://www.asc-csa.gc.ca/index.html

Generally: when will this fad with balloons die out? Why now, why people ignored amateur flights made decade+ ago? (when they actually still demanded some effort in preparations; NVM such feats as dropping UAV glider at climax, a ~decade ago). And "not beyond the offical boundary of space" is and understatement, they're not anywhere near space, not even half way up (rounding it up - more on the surface; also: 24 km makes this one a rather low attempt)
Oh, and I somehow doubt "All of Canada is enthusiastic" about a video with 300 views...

Virtually all comparably large (& usually arbitrarily designated) expanses of land are stretching or... contracting. With varying speeds, some "faster" some slower, but always changing.

Would be nicer if this^ was the main focus of such reporting, maybe also pointing out this essay from Asimov (in this instance, particularly the 5th to 7th section from the end).
Instead it too often goes into & feels like "whoa, man, come here and listen to this funny thing about [...] place, that those scientists now claim"

If "Readers of the site overwhelmingly support the decision" then one might also wonder what impact this might have... (Wiki, Reddit, Wordpress, or Cheezburger otoh... and I wonder what will come out of mulling of Google, FB, Twitter, Yahoo, Amazon, or Ebay; if blackouts, then also possibly riots)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossil_Wrist_PDA - decade old
http://pocketcalculatorshow.com/nerdwatch/fun2.html - quarter+ of a century...

And those were even quite inexpensive. Ultimately, after initial voices of wonder, people just don't care - it's a bad form factor & bad usability for such functionality.

I fail to see the relevance of Britney Spears, Alicia Keys and Snoop Dogg when searching for "music"... (OK, perhaps sort of the middle one)

If this is any "good" - and, from the summary, it sounds like it might possibly be - it has also a real chance of trumping Wiki, E2, YT, or tvtropes effects... (hence "")

The first automated docking capability was indeed decades ago, when those who achieved it were still very firmly (& still for a few decades afterwards) Soviet.
But the second, of European ATV, was only a few years back.

And the Chinese already had crewed missions, it's unlikely this one was very much about testing of life support.

While local rates should be still* somewhat higher with mobile - the latter typically offer the same rate throughout whole country, no matter where the called number is. With people becoming more mobile in general, that could very well have the affect of lower overall charges (well, quite likely really often higher in absolute terms, as far as I can tell - but that's largely because we keep in touch much more actively)
There was a problem with international rates for some time - but that is rapidly improving for a year or two (in the one place of many smallish countries I'm familiar with...), charges now becoming not much higher than country calling - and actually, it's not terribly hard to find offers which, in many cases (for some group of neighbouring countries, typically), already offer the same rates as mobile country calling (which BTW, yes, typically means they are less expensive than long-distance country land line rates).

Is this argument, that you mention, how telecom PR tries to convince you it's a good idea, tries to justify it? (plus, the one who initiates, who desires a conversation, should pay for it... )

* Honestly, I didn't care enough to compare for a long time. The monthly contract payment for - barely used - land line trumped any expected differences over half a decade ago already.