Today’s really cool news about the landing of a probe on a comet has got my mind on outer space (as opposed to being in outer space, which is the more common occurrence). I was a little sad that it wasn’t NASA that did this, but also glad that the rest of the world is picking up where the U.S. seems to have left off.
There’s so little we know about the universe, so many utterly cool things to learn, that I don’t understand why any government wouldn’t want to be at the forefront of space exploration and research. Maybe I’m biased, because my dad was an aerospace engineer. But I think understanding the cosmos around us is kind of important. It sucks that so many people think it’s a waste of time.
Wow, I’m kinda bringing myself down thinking about the lack of real scientific work being done in the U.S. today. Between people who just want budgets to be bare bones and people who only want religious explanations to big questions, there’s been a real erosion of intelligent, cutting-edge research in pretty much all scientific fields. That’s bad. Real bad. We need more smart people doing smart things. Not just to solve immediate problems (although some solutions to climate change would be pretty freaking awesome right about now). We need to keep learning about . . . everything. The world, the cosmos, animals, medicine.
I think knowing stuff is just the best thing in the world. Why wouldn’t you want to learn something new? Let’s hope the Philae probe reveals some neat new knowledge. And then let’s all hope people actually pay attention to it.
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