Conclusions
Does space exploration involve big, seemingly impossible dreams? Absolutely.
But if we have learned anything from the history of space exploration, it is
this: we must allow ourselves to dream.
Dreams allow us to set goals. And by committing ourselves to these goals, we can move step by step toward making our dreams come true.
That's exactly what the pioneers of space exploration--people like Wernher von Braun, Robert Goddard, and Konstantin Tsiolkovsky--have done.
As U.S. President John F. Kennedy told an audience in Houston in 1962, "We
choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because
they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to
organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that
challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to
postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too."
 Video clip of part of U.S. President John F. Kennedy's famous speech at Rice University on September 12, 1962. NASA video. |
Sending people to Mars and beyond will be hard, too. But the dream is alive.
And it's waiting for the people of Earth to accept its challenge.