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Phoenix
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Curiosity, Draco. Insatiable curiosity. Searching for knowledge and understanding I think is one of humanity's few noble pursuits. It is sad that commercial exploitation seems to be the main goal of exploration after the fact - what is discovered by chance or by purposeful endeavor is soon regurgitated into something marketable and much less romantic or noble than what transpires during the moment of revelation. The jubilation with which man first learned to fly machines heavier than air was soured by their sudden conversion into machines of death. The same elation of when man first split the atom was likewise dimmed by the invention and use of the atomic bomb. Knowledge and understanding are good things, but that does not always mean they are put to good use.
Consider money, for example. What is a good use of money? Feeding the hungry, clothing the poor, caring for the ill would all be considered good uses of money. But if one only feeds the hungry, and clothes the poor, and cares for the ill, could one be stifling the progress of invention, and scientific discovery, and understanding that would lead to better ways to grow more food that could feed more people, or more efficient ways to manufacture clothes so that the poor may afford them, or provide jobs for which they can earn enough to support themselves, or could that money be spent better in the long run on new medical research to discover cures for illnesses that evade science's best solutions?
The strange thing is, mankind invents best when he's at war. This seems paradoxical, but let me explain. It is true that man developed fighters, and bombers, and all manner of horrible machines during WWII, but consider less than 40 years prior man could not even get his feet off the ground in anything except a hot-air baloon. Consider how technology advanced through the space program - which was a direct result of the Cold War fears that the Russians could put nuclear weapons in space. Remember Sputnik? Sputnik itself was harmless, but what it represented was horrific for Americans and people in the West. That beeping can of tin passing overhead meant orbital missile platforms that could rain death down on an unsuspecting populace. Americans had to do one better - reach the moon and show the Soviets that America was stronger, and could do even more than just put people and machines in space - that America could put them on another world, and return them safely.
See, man invents best when his survival is threatened. I am not making a case that wars should be waged to benefit man in the long run, only that what is perceived as bad can strangely be responsible for much of what people consider good. Modern computers? Result of Americans trying to break the Enigma codes from WWII. Mass production and interchangable parts? Fathered by Henry Ford, but grandfathered by the firearms industry. Advancements in the internal combustion engine, and motor vehicles? WWI and WWII. Modern aviation? Again, WWI and WWII. Advanced polymers and electronics? Look to the space program. When you think of all the things that make people's standard of living better, look in the oddest places. What people understand about mars, and the solar system, could lead to things people cannot begin to imagine right now that could change their lives in many ways. Consider that dialysis machine that may make a person live that 100 years ago they would have died, or the crime lab that uses machines invented from understanding of the effects of various forms of radiation on different chemicals, such understanding that may have been gleaned from an experiment done in orbit around the earth, that catches a serial rapist or murderer, or the DNA processing techniques that get an innocent man off death row. Could it be that the chemistry is a result of the space program, or a spinoff of the military?
The same radiation used in a hydrogen bomb to kill millions can be controlled and used to kill cancer cells and save someone's life. I know a person first-hand who would not be alive if not for this treatment. I know how many lives this person has touched, and what effect this person has had on others. Cause and effect sometimes are not clear when one sees just a large amount of money thrown into a costly program, but what price can you put on people's lives? Would this treatment have been developed without developing the bomb first? I do not know, but I do know that something as trivial as running a remote-controlled buggy around on Mars could be the first step to larger discoveries that could help, or perhaps hurt, many people.
I do not think God would want mankind to sit idle and throw his hands up in resignation just because the world may erupt in fire in the next decade or too. If God does intent to snatch believers away in fulfilment of prophecy - if our understanding of prophecy be correct - then I think believers have an even greater responsibility to do well unto others since time runs short. In that case, I don't see something like reaching out to Mars as a waste of money. How much money is wasted through trying to market pharmaceuticals that could be better spent producing new cures? How much money is wasted on political campaigns and propaganda that could be spent rebuilding New Orleans? How much money and lives are wasted prolonging wars in order to try to not offend public opinion, when a quick and decisive victory, while initially costly, would save both money and lives in the long run? We can second-guess governments and corporations on how they spend their money, but look to individuals, and how they spend their money. Do rich people spend any better than rich companies or governments do? Are they not even more wasteful at times? Is greed and selfishness and foolishness the same, whether perpetuated by individuals or groups of people? Is it not the same flaw regardless?
I think the problem is that this world does not teach people to think in terms of the long run anymore. People perceive only moment by moment, life moves too fast, and the important things are lost in the impatience to move forward ever faster. What is money but a means to an end, and a tool with which to accomplish some sort of change? Money for money's sake leads to madness. Seek it, and find poverty. Eat it, and find yourself starving. Drink it, and be thirsty. Hoard it, and find it stolen. Marry it and find loneliness. Worship it and find yourself godless and abandoned. Yet, everybody needs it. Do they really? Does wealth make one survive much better than the poor? If a man has enough to eat, and a place to sleep, and clothes to wear, is that not enough to survive? Yet, everyone wants more. Either way, money must be used, whether through self-interest or through generosity, to do work. The poor drive the machine of economy, so that the poor can live. The wealthy only live to please themselves. After all, buying food for the poor is relatively inexpensive, yet how many who have wealth actually do it? Look for charity and you will find it among the poor, not the rich. I worry more about the state of men's souls when people cannot help each other even to buy enough to eat than I would worry about how much money a government spends on exploring other worlds. Let the government spend money on probes to Mars if it wants to. They'll spend it on something else anyway if they do not, and I would say that it is safer in the long run than having them spend it on cameras and other surveilence equipment to ensure the "security" of the populace...
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