I think Mankind has what I call a "Faustian urge" (I probably am not the first to coin the term). It's an allusion to the character of Faust or Doctor Faustus, subject of novels and operas. Faust wanted to know everything so he made a pact with the devil. (Maybe just to make it a little more human and less ivory-tower academic, there's a woman, whom Faust also gains in the pact with the devil.)
Well, Man has been driven to explore and/or "conquer" all of the Earth. It all started when one man was curious to see what lay beyond the river or on the other side of the mountain. Then he had to climb the highest mountain, reach the poles, dive the oceans. Where he can't dive to the bottom of the ocean he uses tools such as little submarines.
We build other tools--microscopes to see the smallest and telescopes to see the most distant. We dig in the earth to go back in time and to see human ancestors and ancient, long-dead, fossilized plants and animals.
So, when people ask why we should spend money on a space program, I answer that it's because we have this Faustian urge and we are compelled to explore continually further and further from home. Who knows where it will end? Since the universe is said to be infinite, it probably will never end.
Copyright © 2012 by Richard Stein
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