Is It Worthwhile To Explore Space
Public opinion is split on President Bush’s recent announcement of a space program
that includes manned missions to Mars and a permanent colony on the Earth’s moon. The arguments against: it is too expensive, and the money can be spent on better things, such as education and healthcare. Seems to me, though, that at the core of education, and perhaps the current problems in education, is the inquisitive spirit of our species and its blunting by too much information presented out of the context of a grander vision for humankind or for the human spirit. The deadening of Romanticism, the triumph of a gray, materialist state that is, if not totalitarian yet in its political life, is certainly well on its way in the intellectual and spiritual spheres, is an ugly, scary and I hope not inevitable progression. If the imagination of a nation cannot be excited by the idea of colonies among the stars, of our species’ first tentative steps beyond the cradle of the Earth, and if the inherent value to education and society of such agitation can’t be realized, then perhaps we are already further down that sad road than one might have guessed.