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space Carl Sagan thought and opinion culture and society politics

[Space exploration] is in financial trouble. Yet by many standards, such missions are inexpensive. Mariner Jupiter/Saturn costs about the same as the American aircraft shot down in Vietnam in the week in which I am writing these words (Christmas 1972). The Viking mission itself costs about a fortnight of the Vietnam war.

I find these comparisons particularly poignant: life versus death, hope versus fear. Space exploration and the highly mechanized destruction of people use similar technology and manufacturers, and similar human qualities of organization and daring. Can we not make the transition from automated aerospace killing to automated aerospace exploration of the solar system in which we live?

Carl Sagan, in conversation with Ray Bradbury and Arthur C. Clarke in 1971, on what we as a culture and a civilization choose to prioritize – a poignant and timely meditation today, some four decades later, when war spending is at an all-time high and the Space Shuttle program is being put to rest.
8-20-2012
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