Mankind's very survival depends on the future exploration of space, said NASA chief Michael Griffin in an interview with AFP marking the 50th anniversary of the US space agency.
This journey, said the veteran physicist and aerospace engineer, is full of unknowns and has only just begun.
"Does the survival of human kind depend upon it? I think so," he said.
Griffin compared the first walk on the Moon with Christopher Columbus's first voyage to the Americas.
Even as a conservative/libertarian penny pincher, I would have been OK with the government backing Columbus on his explorations, and I wish we were spending more on space. That's not to say NASA has always spent money wisely, but does anybody honestly think private enterprise is going to get us off this planet? No matter how much the green movement extends the life of Mother Earth, our future is out there, not here. Humankind is meant to explore. Move it on, move it on.
