Human beings were meant to explore. True. We are also designed to beat the crap out of each other, and to propagate with impunity. Hence, we’d better find a way off this planet, and soon. >;)

I just wish we could skip over this “40 years later, let’s try — TRY — for the moon again” crap. Let’s get our collective butts to Mars, pronto.

Sadly, we probably would have been further along if we hadn’t gone to the moon forty years ago. The expediency we felt due to the Cold War made us gamble and cut out a lot of steps that we normally would have taken–steps that would have enabled us to develop a much finer means of space travel, for example.

And, then, as I say, there is the expediency bit. We just don’t feel like we have to do it anymore, and human beings are nothing if not motivated by necessity. I think it’s necessary: 6.5-billion-people-on-one-rock says to me “necessary.” But most people just don’t see it. They don’t understand why we would want to leave the comforts of this planet, and they somehow believe that the planet will continue to support us–and that we will learn to support each other, despite what history teaches us about that aspect of our makeup–as we multiply.

37 years, technically, since they went there a few more times. I’m not in the least convinced that waiting would have led to finer means of space travel. We’re kind of limited by those pesky laws of physics. Why doesn’t someone get off his ass and invent inertial dampeners already?!