Re: in the next few years,
Yes it's always 'in the next few years'.
That's NASA's motto for anything involving a living person above LEO (Low Earth Orbit) and the one thing you can rely on every country religiously following. For half a century that 'in a few years' has worked wonders, in that time America has invaded many countries and spent $trillions while people wait for NASA - or anyone else, to actually build something, anything, for the job.
Remember NASA itself had those 'several experienced NASA engineers' and stayed in LEO, it's a constant cause by an embarrassing, difficult fact: RADIATION.
That's why no one ever tries. Simple, boring, deadly.
The VAB (Van Allen Belt) is a rapid death but the type of radiation there is not super high energy - same as the solar wind, and any future craft if properly constructed - perhaps with superconducting magnets etc may be able to cope with that.
Cosmic radiation outside of the VAB is the real insoluble problem, the heavy ions rip through everything, NASA estimates over a year (365 days) 33% of a man's cell nuclei will be struck by a heavy ion. This means a 6 day moon mission strikes 33% x (6/365) = 0.5% will be hit, giving any astronaut certain cancer. That's according to NASA's own figures: not mine.
Travelling through and outside the VAB may one day be possible, but not with any technology known about today, and as the US marches around the world destabilising and destroying one country after another the chances of finding such a technology is rapidly dying.