“When it is realized that man’s future, his greatest fulfillment, may lie in the cosmos and not on the surface of the earth at all, then it is strongly suggested that mankind has not reached maturity but only completed gestation. Man is a creature not merely of the earth. Man’s creation began as a turbulence in a cloud of gas in infinite space and proceeded by condensation into a galaxy, stars, planets, and finally the seas and continents of the earth. These speculations lead inescapably to the concept that man is the creature of the cosmos, not of the earth; that the earth is only his womb, his chrysalis perhaps.”
Hamilton B. Webb, “Speculations on Space and Human Destiny,” 1961
INEXPENSIVE ACCESS TO THE UNIQUE ENVIRONMENT OF SPACE OFFERS BENEFITS TO ALL HUMANITY SECOND TO NONE
“If Earth is considered a closed system, there will be less for all forever. The frontier is closed, the wilderness is gone, nature is being destroyed by human consumers, while billions are starving. The future indeed looks grim, and there are, ultimately, no really long-range, positive solutions, nor motivation for making the sacrifices and doing the hard work needed now, unless we understand that we are evolving from an Earth-only toward an Earth-space or universal species.”
Barbara Marx Hubbard, Distant Star, 1997
Electronic Magazine of the First Millennial Foundation
Musk
“AN ENGINEER IS THE CLOSEST THING TO A MAGICIAN THAT EXISTS IN THE REAL WORLD.”
Musk
“NASA is not about the “Adventure of Human Space Exploration”. We are in the deadly serious business of saving the species. All human exploration’s bottom line is about preserving our species over the long haul.”
John Young
“Unless we turn human growth and energy toward the challenges and promises of space, our only other choice may be the awful risk, currently demonstrable, of stumbling into a cycle of fratricide and regression which could end all chances of our evolving further or of even surviving.”