“…in the historical perspective, the seafaring nations of Europe grew mighty from the wealth returned from the discovery and settlement of the new world. Those societies who stayed home languished, those who embraced the unknown prospered. Seen broadly, we’re a species which owes its current success to exploration. Exploration generates opportunities which lead to economic strength, and exploration yields situational awareness which creates survival options. It contributes directly to our survival, not by giving us a second home if we screw this one up – I think that’s kind of a lame argument – but by giving us interplanetary technical capability which will allow us to police and secure our own backyard, the solar system. It might possibly give us the means to deliver ourselves from destruction in this cosmic shooting gallery.
“Right now if we discovered a comet nucleus or an asteroid on impact course with Earth, we could do exactly what the dinosaurs did, and we could stare upward with a dumb look on our faces. We need to evolve beyond the dinosaurs. And maybe the ultimate goal of the great Darwinian engine churning away on this planet since the days of heavy bombardment was to evolve beyond the role of helpless victim. We’re not going to do it sitting here.”
— James Cameron at the AIAA’s First Space Exploration Conference (February, 2005)
