space-exploration

Even if the aliens are short, dour, and sexually obsessed__f they__e here, I want to know about them.

Pushing the boundaries and uniting the world: That__ what Mars One is about.

Part of what drives us to explore and discover is the intangible: expanding our horizons, feeding our curiosity, finding all those unexpected things, and trying to answer those profound questions discussed in previous chapters, like how did the universe begin? How did life begin? Are we alone?

We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win.

Across the sea of space, the stars are other suns.

People ask what will happen if Mars One fails. There will be Mars Two, Mars Three, there will be Gliese 581 One, Proxima Centauri b One etc. If a project opens the path for other projects, it means that it has already triumphed!

Another principle that I believe can be justified by scientific evidence so far is that nobody is going to emigrate from this planet not ever....It will be far cheaper, and entail no risk to human life, to explore space with robots. The technology is already well along....the real thrill will be in learning in detail what is out there...It is an especially dangerous delusion if we see emigration into space as a solution to be taken when we have used up this planet....Earth, by the twenty-second century, can be turned, if we so wish, into a permanent paradise for human beings...

I find these comparisons particularly poignant: life versus death, hope versus fear. Space exploration and the highly mechanized destruction of people use similar technology and manufacturers, and similar human qualities of organization and daring. Can we not make the transition from automated aerospace killing to automated aerospace exploration of the solar system in which we live?

Radical space technologies never reach the public because unknown groups do not wish humanity to have access to the highest knowledge or the most advanced scientific inventions. Perhaps this suppression is out of fear that the masses may be able to explore our Solar System and the Universe beyond it. Whatever the case, it seems they want us to stay at ignorant levels forever.

Do I think it was inherent nobility that brought us out here?_ He shook his head. __aybe. I don__ call it nobility, though. I think it__ our innate human need to champion the underdog. We are constant optimists. We__e the emotional descendents of the caveman who stood defiant in the front of the wooly mammoth. We rebuild cities at the base of Vesuvius, get back on the bicycle when we fall off, whack that hornet__ nest every spring. Humans cheer for the couldn__ be, believe in the shouldn__ be. We love causes; the harder, the more lost they are, the more we love them. Is that nobility?Maybe. Maybe it__ a pernicious genetic defect that makes our species susceptible to shared delusion. Whatever it is, it keeps life interesting.

We will know which stars to visit. Our descendants will then skim the light years, the children of Thales and Aristarchus, Leonardo and Einstein.

And in that moment, I was hit with the realization that this delicate layer of atmosphere is all that protects every living thing on Earth from perishing in the harshness of space.

Everyone I have spoken with about working with the Russians in space exploration believes that the United States has learned a great deal from Russia and that Russia has learned a great deal from the United States _ and that the entire international space partnership is much better because of it.

You can't solve problems until you understand the other side." __effrey Manber

Science cuts two ways, of course; its products can be used for both good and evil. But there's no turning back from science. The early warnings about technological dangers also come from science.

A partner's different perspective is valuable, but the very fact that it is different means that it will require work, humility, time, and resources to incorporate that perspective. At times, this will require checking one's pride at the door.

It is a very sobering feeling to be up in space and realize that one's safety factor was determined by the lowest bidder on a government contract.

This was exactly what I experienced in space: immense gratitude for the opportunity to see Earth from this vantage, and for the gift of the planet we've been given.