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Chapter 14 - Return to Earth

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 September 2014

Arlin Crotts
Affiliation:
Columbia University, New York
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Summary

The visions we offer our children shape the future. It matters what those visions are. Often they become self-fulfilling prophecies. Dreams are maps.

– Carl Sagan, 1987

I have written letters on odd pages of this book. Will you manage to get them sent? You see I am anxious for you and the boy’s future. Make the boy interested in natural history if you can, it is better than games. They encourage it at some schools.

– Capt. Robert Falcon Scott, near the end of his final letter to wife Kathleen Scott, March 28, 1912, a day before his death on the Ross Ice Shelf on returning from the South Pole

By necessity this book concerns not just next year or 10 years, but maybe the next 20 or 40. People yet unborn will fulfill (or forsake) these efforts and decisions. What will their world be like, and who will they be? For now we depend on others’ educated guesses. However, as we choose, space exploration can play important roles, in ways useful to current politics but also influencing youth central to realizing these and other dreams.

Exploration takes time, generations. It can inspire generations, one of the few strong motivations demonstrated to attract young people into science, engineering, and mathematics (over-succinctly acronymed as STEM: Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics). Modern economies, especially America’s, require vital influx of inspired scientists, engineers, and mathematicians. These workers and innovators maintain the main seminal foundation of America’s economic production (besides its agricultural base). Innovative products (and food) are what America creates from scratch that people in other nations want to buy.

Type
Chapter
Information
The New Moon
Water, Exploration, and Future Habitation
, pp. 432 - 462
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2014

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  • Return to Earth
  • Arlin Crotts, Columbia University, New York
  • Book: The New Moon
  • Online publication: 05 September 2014
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139045384.015
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Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

  • Return to Earth
  • Arlin Crotts, Columbia University, New York
  • Book: The New Moon
  • Online publication: 05 September 2014
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139045384.015
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Return to Earth
  • Arlin Crotts, Columbia University, New York
  • Book: The New Moon
  • Online publication: 05 September 2014
  • Chapter DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139045384.015
Available formats
×