To Seeing What's Out There

There are so many logical reasons why one should support space exploration, and justify the expense. But these reasons are not why I support space exploration. I support space exploration because it's just fascinating. I’m not yet a computer scientist, so I don’t get to call myself a scientist according to many. But I share with them an inherent need to understand the world around me, and to see with my eyes the structures underpinning our existence. There's a kind of awe I get when I read a beautiful algorithm that I also get when I understand what the CMBR is, and how it got there. And even if I didn't understand any of the science, there's a different kind of awe, a more primal and fundamental numinous, that comes from seeing a picture of the surface of Titan sent back by Huygens, or cloud tops of Jupiter seen from just above their surface. A kind of awe I would gladly pay a few dollars for - which, as one of 300 million Americans, is precisely what it costs me.

If we stopped going to space tomorrow, if we never sent another person into orbit or beyond, if Juno was the last probe to leave earth, it would not send the economy into (more of) a tailspin. The world would keep turning. And that money might go to help people, though it would probably go to the military. I think most people would feel we'd lost something, though, if mankind left space. People would feel we'd taken a step backwards. They wouldn't be able to articulate it, they wouldn't point to a company that lost money or jobs. When something showed them how much their government was saving, they'd shrug and say, "I guess...". But they'd feel something intangible had been lost. That's because every once in a while, people like to be reminded of what is bigger than themselves. I remember the awe when the Hubble was first fixed and the first beautiful pictures of the "Pillars of Creation," graced the cover of Time. People really like space. And while I can't speak to other countries, I think most Americans, or at least many, are perfectly content to spend a few dollars each for Juno or New Horizons or Dawn. Even if they don't understand the data coming back from the magnetometers or particle detectors, they know that we're learning about places and events so far removed from our human experience. And people like that. We like to point at the sky and say, "That's mankinds domain."

#UntappedAdventures