![fuckyeahspaceexploration:
Timeline #31
14 May 2012: FuckYeahSpaceExploration celebrates its first birthday, and I thank all my followers for the kind words I’ve received over the last year, and their continued interest, support and passion with all things space-exploratory!
One question I get quite frequently is “What do you think is the most important reason to explore space?” or “My friends always tell me that spending money on space exploration is pointless, what do I tell them?”
Personally my number one reason is to do with the perspective that it gives us as a civilisation. In fact, my reason cannot be better summed up than by one Mr Carl E. Sagan, in reference to a photograph of Earth he made the Voyager 1 probe take in 1990:
“The earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals […] Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of the dot on scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner of the dot. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity — in all this vastness — there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. It is up to us. It’s been said that astronomy is a humbling, and I might add, a character-building experience. To my mind, there is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly and compassionately with one another and to preserve and cherish that pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.”
Congrats on making the front page, you deserve it.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m41hy2jS1r1qfdrldo1_500.png)
View high resolution
Timeline #31
14 May 2012: FuckYeahSpaceExploration celebrates its first birthday, and I thank all my followers for the kind words I’ve received over the last year, and their continued interest, support and passion with all things space-exploratory!
One question I get quite frequently is “What do you think is the most important reason to explore space?” or “My friends always tell me that spending money on space exploration is pointless, what do I tell them?”
Personally my number one reason is to do with the perspective that it gives us as a civilisation. In fact, my reason cannot be better summed up than by one Mr Carl E. Sagan, in reference to a photograph of Earth he made the Voyager 1 probe take in 1990:
“The earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals […] Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of the dot on scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner of the dot. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity — in all this vastness — there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. It is up to us. It’s been said that astronomy is a humbling, and I might add, a character-building experience. To my mind, there is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly and compassionately with one another and to preserve and cherish that pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.”
Congrats on making the front page, you deserve it.
