Stagnation and entropy are cousins. Movement is the key to prosperity, and the day we stopped looking at the stars and trying to figure out how to get to them was a very sad one, not just for me, but for humanity.
It's my very firm belief that space, as deadly and unforgiving as it is, is the key to humanity's survival. If not that, then I know it's the essential component to our advancement as a species.
On Wednesday, my friend and colleague Ward Clark wrote a piece discussing the Artemis II launch, a NASA project meant to take us back to the moon:
This mission, carrying a crew of four - Commander Reid Wiseman, Pilot Victor Glover, and Mission Specialist Christina Koch from NASA, and Mission Specialist Jeremy Hansen from the CSA (Canadian Space Agency), won't land on the moon. Instead, this mission will take the four explorers around the moon, making this the farthest humans have gone from Earth since the Apollo missions ended.
Read: Artemis II Launch Today: NASA’s Historic Crewed Moon Mission Now Prepping for Launch
I think this is a superb idea. Many may complain that this is a waste of time, money, and resources, but it's my honest opinion that space exploration is a sure-fire way to keep growing and healthy.
For starters, trying to push into the unknown unlocks humanity's knack for innovation. Our initial attempts to traverse space yielded an insane number of inventions that we now use in our day-to-day lives. Spin-off technology, as it's called, has changed the way we work and live, and a lot of it came from the fact that we tried to move around in the black.
Even the Invisalign dental device that fixes the alignment of crooked teeth came from tech developed by NASA. The mouse you use for your computer originally came from the Jet Propulsion Lab.
And there's a lot more than that. If you want to see more, I made a video that discusses some of the advancements made thanks to space travel.
While this is great and all, I think there's a need for this kind of thing for humanity as a species. We need a frontier. God wired us for exploration and discovery, and when we're not doing that, we tend to devolve in a way.
Our ambitions become smaller, and our fights become shallow and meaningless. But with the benefit of an unknown place for us to explore, we tend to receive a connected purpose. We remember what courage really looks like, our ingenuity begins to shine brightly, and we set a standard of excellence for future generations to not just look up to but live up to.
Earth is home, but it is a cradle. If we're going to achieve the heights we're capable of, we have to leave it. Not just to expand our territory or unlock new technologies, but to fully realize what we are. The solutions to a lot of our problems as a species are out there, be it resources, understanding of God's creation, or understanding of ourselves.
Even Socrates knew that, when he said: "Man must rise above Earth to the top of the atmosphere and beyond, for only then will he fully understand the world in which he lives."
Staying in one place has never truly helped any civilization. In fact, the ones that fail to move and act tend to whither. History has been pretty clear about that.
Humanity needs to get out there. There aren't any real excuses for not going, or at the very least, not any that would justify ignoring it in the long-term. Doing so would eventually doom humanity to stagnation and, eventually, death. We weren't given this intelligence and thirst for knowledge for us to sit here and scratch out a living in the dirt forever.
Every rocket launched is, in my opinion, a big thanks to God and an acknowledgement of His gifts.
As far as I'm concerned, space is the place we need to make a priority.
