I think that all the witnesses, but especially Steven Hawking, put into perspective the long-term importance of human space exploration. Hawking talked about a 200- to 500-year time span, and Americans—government in particular—are not accustomed to thinking of those types of time frames. But we need to think that way for economic reasons, for technological and scientific reasons, and most especially for spiritual reasons—how we view ourselves and the rest of the world.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 31st, 2008 at 11:39 am and is filed under Politics .