Space Exploration

          Early man quickly pushed past his borders from Africa into both Europe and Asia. While initially forced out of necessity, following animal herds for food and fleeing danger, these earliest civilizations spread quickly across the continents. Early Asian settlers took to the sea and populated many of the Polynesian Islands. The barbarians which toppled the Roman Empire swept down from the Caucus Mountains in a mass migration, and Vikings probed the eastern boundaries of North America centuries before Columbus. The common denominator is the very fundamental human nature of exploration.

          We have always been inquisitive creatures. Our global exploration has only been hindered by our technological expertise. As we advanced our technology, uncharted areas continued to be eagerly explored.  Even the harshest areas of the world, Antarctica, the Himalayas and the most remote islands were mapped out by scientists and adventurers.  But we were still left with the greatest unknown, that of our rarefied heavenly ether.

           In order to explore the cosmos, massive technological knowledge is required. Space travel tests the limits of our human brains. It forces us to innovate, and innovate we have. We have deployed armies of scientists to land men on the moon. We accomplished this just decades after we first achieved manned flight. Technology continues to transform society at a breakneck pace. So what does our future hold?

           In all likelihood, we will put a man on Mars within a decade or two. Once long distance spaceflights become common, the vastness of our universe awaits. Our nature guarantees that we will continuously push up against those boundaries. Our civilization will no longer be constrained by our home planet. Our modern day Magellan's will continue to risk their lives to map out every uncharted corner of the cosmological map. Our human spirit demands nothing less.