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January 15, 2004

Explore and Expand

Dan Gillmor's take, on President's Bush Moon/Mars announcement, is less cynical than mine. I like his better.

We can quibble -- and we will, at great length, in coming months and years -- about how we should explore space. But I hope we'll come to some agreement with President Bush, who today endorsed a vital goal: the establishment of human colonies on the Moon, Mars and beyond.

Bush's well-leaked call for a serious expansion of human space exploration deserves support. He sounded just the right notes, including this so-true line: "We do not know where this journey will end. Yet we know this: Human beings are headed into the cosmos."

...I'm jealous of the people being born today in at least this respect: If humanity survives its stupidities, some of them will be among the people who get to inhabit other worlds, to live, work and play. They will know the beginning of an era when some of us left this beautiful world for good, to do what people have always done: explore and expand. Given the risks we face here, and given our very nature as human beings, we have no choice.

Posted by jghiii at January 15, 2004 03:58 PM
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