That thread about NASA's objective got me thinking... all politics aside, what is the real purpose of our space program? What are we really there for?
Well, as the history of the earth has show us time and time again, we (humans) won't last here forever, as no species has. Climate change, changes in atmospheric levels, ozone depletion, resource depletion, something will get us. And that's if we don't blow each other up first. And of course EVERY planet eventually dies out. It seems pretty simple. Bottom line; our time here is finite. That fact alone supports having a space program and space exploration; in fact, it necessitates it. Unless we are just giving up.
There is another life supporting planet out there. There's probably millions. If we had the ability to explore more than 1/1 billioneth of the universe we might find it. It appears humans are far and away the most intelligent species yet to dominate the earth. Unfortunately this means we can use that intelligence to do things like develop bombs that can destroy our whole planet. We put half of that effort into space and in 100 years we're charting depths unimaginable. It's unclear whether our intelligence will end up destroying or saving us, but at the moment it looks like smart money is on the former. We still have that choice, though. Maybe us humans will be long gone before we ever find anything, but don't we have to at least TRY?
Our species is still in its infancy. We've lasted a tiny fraction of the amount of time the dinosaurs were around. We're a blink of an eye, a microscopic dot on the timeline of earth's history. And we've already developed technology to destroy ourselves and are developing better ways to do it every day. Any chance we stick around a while? Ideas? Any religious people want to yell at me?
