Posted 1/19/2004 05:29:00 PM by Douglas

Lileks, again, defending the space program, with typical Lileksonian zeal:

France isn't going to the moon. What stops them from curing spinal-cord injuries? Germany isn't going to the moon. What stops them from curing spinal-cord injuries? Britain isn't going to the moon. What stops them from curing spinal-cord injuries? And so forth. It's not a zero-sum game; America is not the world. But America is best suited to leave this world for another. If that idea leaves you cold, fine.

Exactly. We don't have to spend money on medical research or any of the other countless things around the planet. But we do, because we're Americans, and despite what some of the tin-foil hat wearing Libertarians think, we have done some good on the planet.

Haven't you ever looked up at the great dark beyond and felt you were being drawn from where you stood, carried into something greater? Every night the sky is an invitation. Who can look up and see nothing but a roof?

Well that's just it, isn't it? The inspiration for mankind to do great things. Do we need to? No, but then again we don't need a new housing development in Philadelphia, or a day-care center in the Bronx, or another $20 Billion this year to stop the flow of illegal drugs into this country that are going to get here no matter how much we spend. Mankind will certainly get along fine without these things, just like we'll get by without a manned space program. But we can do all. And which would you rather see? Your name on a plaque on the Lunar or Martian surface, or on a methadone clinic in New Jersey?

Here's the clincher:

Space is to humans what Beethoven is to dogs. I don't think we have the slightest idea what we don't yet understand.

Damn right!

The beautiful thing about a voyage of discovery is that the voyage may be just as important as the destination. You don't know where you're going until you get there, and sometimes, not even then.