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32fc77f
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A blade of grass is a commonplace on Earth; it would be a miracle on Mars. Our descendants on Mars will know the value of a patch of green. And if a blade of grass is priceless, what is the value of a human being?
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earth
science
space-exploration
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Carl Sagan |
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046a985
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We take off into the cosmos, ready for anything: for solitude, for hardship, for exhaustion, death. Modesty forbids us to say so, but there are times when we think pretty well of ourselves. And yet, if we examine it more closely, our enthusiasm turns out to be all sham. We don't want to conquer the cosmos, we simply want to extend the boundaries of Earth to the frontiers of the cosmos.... We are humanitarian and chivalrous; we don't want to enslave other races, we simply want to bequeath them our values and take over their heritage in exchange. We think of ourselves as the Knights of the Holy Contact. This is another lie. We are only seeking Man. We have no need of other worlds. We need mirrors. (1970 English translation)
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racism
jingoism
new-worlds
imperialism
space-exploration
science-fiction
self-image
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Stanisław Lem |
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cb7b3b1
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He has a minor in explosives and the slightly bitter, misanthropic personality of someone who shouldn't.
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space-exploration
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Mary Roach |
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8a641a3
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Apocalyptic explosions, dead reactors, terrorists, mass murder, death-slugs, and now a blindness plague. This is a terrible planet. We should not have come here.
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explosion
mass-murder
terrorists
planet
plague
space-exploration
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James S.A. Corey |
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a7fe8e7
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A few generations living and dying without a sky, and enclosed spaces lost the atavistic terror of premature burial.
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fear
death
burial
space-exploration
sky
terror
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James S.A. Corey |
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425d1d1
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"The beauty of Mars exists in the human mind," he said in that dry factual tone, and everyone stared at him amazed. "Without the human presence it is just a collection of atoms, no different than any other random speck of matter in the universe. It's we who understand it, and we who give it meaning. All our centuries of looking up at the night sky and watching it wander through the stars. All those nights of watching it through the telescopes, looking at a tiny disk trying to see canals in the albedo changes. All those dumb sci-fi novels with their monsters and maidens and dying civilizations. And all the scientists who studied the data, or got us here. That's what makes Mars beautiful. Not the basalt and the oxides"
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sax-russell
conciousness
exploration
space-exploration
mars
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Kim Stanley Robinson |
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0bf79af
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So. Our little pearl of warmth, our spinning orrery of lives, our island, our beloved solar system, our hearth and home, tight and burnished in the warmth of the sun--and then--these starships we are making out of Nix. We will send them to the stars, they will be like dandelion seeds, floating away on a breeze. Very beautiful. We will never see them again.
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space
space-exploration
science-fiction
powerful
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Kim Stanley Robinson |
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7db260f
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I sailed upon oceans, and I thought no challenge could be greater, and now men sail the void between stars. Oh, how I remember them. The constellations burning so bright at night. How could I ever have known? God's creation has a majesty which lays men bare at his feet.
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universe
stars
space
space-exploration
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Peter F. Hamilton |