I was born with the Space Age, more or less. The U.S. response to Sputnik, Explorer I, launched a few months before I did.
I was an avid reader of science fiction from an early age. I witnessed the first moon walk, way past my bedtime. I have followed every twist and turn, triumph and tragedy, of our space program ever since. I still believe that—should we manage to avoid destroying ourselves first—humanity must eventually grow beyond our marvelous, amazing, glorious home on Earth.
Our exploration of space is now confined largely to fantastic achievements in remote control: little, intricate, robust robots that sometimes perform way beyond their specs. That’s great, but it lacks the romance, the daring, and the sheer wonder of putting human bodies into completely new environments.
There’s always something ‘more urgent’ to spend money on here at home, locally. But the aspiration that drives, the exploration that reveals, and the inspiration that motivates require big dreams and large canvases. Forget the practical benefits that accrue from the science behind space travel, and focus on the underlying faith and optimism that a vision of space-faring humanity implies: not only can we survive and achieve, we should, because our capacity for goodness is worthy of it.