Any country that doesn't explore is going to ultimately recede

‘A monument to the triumph of the human spirit’, Orlando Sentinel via Daily Press
Two months ago, former NASA astronaut Scott Parazynski ascended Mount Everest, carrying a lunar rock brought back by the Apollo 11 mission that landed on the moon 40 years ago tomorrow.
Along the way, he endured hardships like those experienced by Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin: bulky equipment, rocky terrain and a lack of oxygen. The effort made Parazynski the first astronaut to summit the world’s highest peak. It also gave him a deeper understanding of why his boyhood heroes Armstrong and Edmund Hillary sought the unknown.
“Any time you explore … you learn things you never expected,” Parazynski said. “Any country that doesn’t explore is going to ultimately recede.”