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Comment by kmm | Hacker News Reader

Doesn't it bother you that you won't be the one doing the exploring? I'm insanely envious of these people and sometimes I wish manned spaceflight would end. Standing on the Moon sounds like the most amazing experience I can imagine and it pains me that I won't ever get there and even if I would, I would just be the umpteenth tourist, littering up the place.

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I would absolutely love to stand on the surface of Mars or see Alpha Centauri with my own eyes, but I also know that such things are outside of my grasp. Poets and philosophers make for lousy explorers. It is enough for me that we, as a species, are reaching upward. It is enough for me that we, as a people, are overcoming chains that were not even imagined by our ancestors -- tasks so difficult, so alien that they would only describe it as touching the face of god. This is about more than the whimsical realized dream of an individual; it is the progression of the entire species.

This is how human beings are made great.

It's almost a cliche on the Intarwebs, but it might help you to read some Dawkins, specifically The Selfish Gene.

The progress of a species does not happen for the benefit of individual members, and that's true for us as humans as well. In that sense, as long as someone makes it, we all make it.

(Which is why it bothers me that so much is apparently riding on this one mission. The job of carrying human spaceflight forward is too much responsibility for one man, one company, or even one government, and Musk might do well to remind everyone of that before the launch.)

anne passovoy wrote a beautiful song about this, "harbors". you can see the lyrics here[1], though sadly it's hard to find a recording.

[1] http://www.stonekettle.com/2011/07/next-step-americas-future...

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