I haven't decided what to think about the plan to send people to the Moon and Mars. On the one hand, as a hard core sci-fi junkie, not only do I feel obligated to support space exploration, I am all but required to agree with Ray Bradbury, who wrote an excellent piece in this month's Playboy (yes, I read it for the articles) supporting the idea of going back to the Moon and Mars because mere survival of our species is not enough. On the other hand, I look at how much this Moon/Mars thing is going to cost us, add 40% because it is a government project, and think, "Did I miss the memo where we solved hunger, poverty, and disease here on Earth? If we're planning to light a fire under that much money and blast it into space, we must have straightened everything out at home." Also, Sen. John Glenn--the one politician who, in my opinion, knows a thing or two about space exploration--is of the opinion that this is not the way to go about a return to space exploration.
The hard truth is that if we are going to try to further scientific understanding and the general state of the human species, some people are going to be left behind. As nice as it would be if we could live in a Star Trek universe where we've gotten beyond all the petty things that set humanity back several centuries, and have become enlightened, I can't see how that is going to happen in our lifetimes, and launching ourselves into space isn't going to make it happen.
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