"It is in our nature to explore"
“It is in our nature to explore, to reach out into the unknown. The only true failure would be not to explore at all.” — Sir Ernest Shackleton born #OTD in 1874 pic.twitter.com/a6yhcFSW8y
— NASA Watch (@NASAWatch) February 15, 2019
Not just explore… but settle.
Interesting enough, July will be the 600th Anniversary of the settlement of the island of Madeira by the Portuguese under Prince Henry. It was uninhabited when they discovered it and it is considered to be the first land colonized during the Age of Discovery that Prince Henry is credited with launching.
I wonder what 2619 will look like.
A fitting tribute to his 145th Birthday, and the era of privately funded exploration.
Most people have read “South” – but I also recommend “The Heart of the Antarctic” being the narrative of his attempt to reach the South Pole in 1909 – got to within 1-1/2 degrees of latitude and had to turn back. Thanks for posting.
No it isn’t.
I’m a space nerd so I admire the intent of these kinds of rah-rah speeches, but as a nerd I’m also a pedant… Historically it’s much much more common for humans to stay in their home district their entire lives. Even nomadic tribes stay in the same range, only moving within known territory.
Explorers are freaks of the species. Lovely freaks, necessary freaks, but freaks all the same.
This entire era of civilisation, that has depended so utterly on change and curiosity, is a queer aberration in historical norms. Glorious, wondrous, but not natural, and not inevitably going to continue. Indeed, we should expect is that it won’t, that the true nature of humanity will successfully reassert itself and finally quench this strange era of discovery. If that bothers you, then you need to fight against humanity’s true nature.
I worry that this common trope amongst space and science advocates is self-defeating. It isn’t in our nature, we have to work for it.