Exploring

The universe is probably littered with the one-planet graves of cultures which made the sensible economic decision that there's no good reason to go into space -- each discovered, studied, and remembered by the ones who made the irrational decision -- Randall Munroe

There is a left-wing critique of space exploration: it's too expensive, too resource-intensive, and too diverting of attention when there are (often grave) human needs to be attended to right here.

This ignores the question: what are we living for? As individuals. As a species. As nations, if we insist in continuing to divide ourselves in that manner. One of the answers we have consistently found, at least since the days that humans left their African homeland and spread out across the earth, is to explore new places, learn about them, and settle them.

The last point--the settling--points to a dark side to this tendency. We have a tendency to destroy what's already there. We should maintain our awareness of this tendency and let it temper what we do when we explore. But explore we must. It is an essential component of who we are, one of the reasons and rewards for carrying on with our lives.