This has nothing to do with security, feel free to ignore it.
Somewhere in the archives of a local TV station in Lombardy lies an interview with a child held at a park called "Villa Reale" in Milan. It is a beautiful small park, the grounds of the old royal palace in the city centre and is restricted to children and adults accompanying them. The child and his friends were being interviewed about what they wanted to be when they "grew up".
It was 1981, one of the children was eight and replied with pride: "an astrophysicist!". Before then his aim had been to be a cook despite already being heavily into computers but had changed his mind just a few days earlier when the small Telefunken colour TV had shown him the Columbia landing after its first trip in space. He had heard that the future missions would carry "specialists" to study the cosmos and astrophysicists would be amongst them. Then he discovered that the requirements were excellence in mathematics and physics. Sadly he couldn't achieve the latter, only the former, but got close enough to think that his dream was partially fulfilled.
So now the Columbia is lost and people are discussing whether or not we should continue to send men in space as it carries such an enormous cost and risk.
The point of it all is that ever since mankind existed it has been mystified by the skies above: the beauty of the night sky and the desire to comprehend the mystery behind it. This has driven it to incredible conquests: from mathematics to engineering, from navigation to physics. Few efforts have been comparable in magnitude except for the daftness of war and even this should not overshadow the greatness of the other achievements. Now why would mankind even spend this kind of time and effort which makes NASA's budget and effort pale in comparison? Simple: they have been chasing a dream.
And dreams are priceless.
Posted by arrigo at February 4, 2003 06:17 PM