With the current war in Iraq and all the current global anti-USA sentiment, international support for NASA is waning. People should come to understand that the work and importance of such governmental agencies such as NASA far outweighs the importance of any geopolitical occurances. There are many other groups of people as well who profess no interest in space sciences due to their dogmatic beliefs. This includes the widly help notion that the Earth will meet a dogmatic fate at the hand of some deity. Still, the majority of scientists these days do agree that the days of Earth are numbered.
Regardless of who you are or where you are from; one day your decendents will have to evacuate the Earth. That is is mankind is first able to survive himself. Our Sun, the beloved Sol is not still a young star. There is only a finite amount of fuel it contains and despite it's power and brilliance, it too has an incept date.
Eventually it will swell and even encompass the orbit of Earth itself. Everything we have and hold dear on our beautiful Terra will be destroyed and laid to absolute oblivion. There is also the danger that the Earth might suffer a major impact event in the meantime from the likes of a comet or giant meteorite. Many Scientists are saying these days that the Earth itself is perhaps as much as 90% into it's habitability stage. Rather this is true or not is irrelevant.
If humanity is to survive as a species, at some point we must evacuate this planet. Albeit that this problem of absolute destruction of the Earth is not due to take place for perhaps hundreds of millions if not billions of years; it is of the most extreme importance that humanity can arrive at not just the technological level to construct an escape, but a practical social effort and conscious on the subject as well. Regardless of the philosophy and politics of whatever country or countries that exist at any given time, it is of the utmost importance that all of humanity supports the development of technologies related to space travel and other sciences, like Terra Forming for example. We after all did inherit many needful traits from the vile Romans.
Currently NASA is planning a return trip to the Moon that is much more involved and advanced in purpose than our most recent ventures that were over 30 years ago. I say "our" in the strictest sense of "Everybody". This endeavour is indeed important for the benefit of all of humanity.
From the Moon we can reach out to spread our presence to the other planets of our solar system and beyond. In the least if some great calamity should happen to mankind between now and the final cataclysm, in the least we would of the knowledge gained from these exploits hopefully safely tucked away in a cave somewhere for posterity. Mankind has plenty of time between now and then to grow and mature a bit more.
In the order of things humanity itself is very new. To put it simply, it is the responsibility of everyone who cares about the ultimate future of mankind to support not just NASA but all of the space exploration and related science agencies from around the world. From the smallest of things the largest and mighty does grow.
Personally I'm optimistic about our future. I have the greatest hope that oneday our descendents will perhaps reflect back on the people of the long vanished Earth in awe of our caring and purpose and perhaps see themselves as a celebration of who we were. Perhaps without any lament but pure joy, a single human child whom we successfully managed to shelter around a distant star will shed a tear for us.in thanks to the caring folk who once inhabited a place called Earth. Should this come to pass in the eye of my mind, just this in itself is enough to justify space exploration.
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