Failure to Launch

Dr. Stephen Hawking has once again emphasized that humanity's future is in the exploration and colonization of outer space. It's partly because of Dr. Hawking's repeated statements that I have such strong beliefs about our urgent need to expand further into the universe.

I think that this country emphasizes trivialities far more than it should. Instead of entertainment news programs on television, for example, there should be documentaries that show how vast remain the frontiers of knowledge, and what greatness awaits us if we maintain a pioneering spirit.

But both the right and the left have failed us in this respect. The right tells us that we should let capitalistic imperatives determine the aims of progress -- for example, what shows survive on television. The left tells us that science is not as important as it seems and that mankind's technology is the cause of great harm. No wonder NASA is left to fend for itself.

This is not the future I wanted for myself or posterity -- a future of scientific muddling and mere consumerist pandering. While there are great minds and great discoveries made daily in our fine laboratories and universities, and in research institutes of all kinds far and wide, we live in an era when Earth remains the primary, and apparently only, concern. From the standpoint of our species' future in space, or perhaps our future of any kind as a species, more's the pity, indeed.