Space motivations (was: Distant planet judged possibly habitable)

simberg.interglobal@xxxxxxxxx (Rand Simberg) wrote:

Also note that there have been other projects, such as cathedrals,
that took more than a human lifetime to complete.

This made me think of the meme that particle accelerators are the
cathedrals of our time, with scientific knowledge standing in for _ad
maiorem Dei gloriam_.

For a generation after Hiroshima, high-energy physics was able to
coast on "fund the eggheads, they may come up with another wonder
weapon." Symbolically, that ended in 1969 with Robert Wilson
(Fermilab)'s congressional testimony: asked if it would contribute to
national defense, he replied candidly no, except that it was part of
what made the nation worth defending.

Space is still making that transition: sometimes still coasting on
updated variations of the "new high ground" and "Red moon" anxiety of
1957... sometimes on more diffuse Apollo-like grounds of national
prestige and leadership... sometimes for its own sake, in two
overlapping, sometimes competing flavors: we want to know, and we want
to go.









Monte Davis
http://montedavis.livejournal.com
.