Finish goal set long ago, in galaxy far, far away***Born into the last great era of boys' tales, I was able to battle across Barsoom (Mars, in Martian-speak) with the Edgar Rice Burroughs character John Carter and decipher Wauxums, Delameters and other space weapons. I knew who spoke for Boskone, the mysterious force for evil in the Burroughs books. I roamed the jungle with Tarzan of the Apes and explored "hot and humid" Venus "hidden behind its clouds." That was before mamas started pushing their little darlings, teenage girls tarted up and pubescent males could concentrate on the important matters in life, like finding lost kingdoms, fighting savage tribes and rocket science instead of sex.
This was, of course, the Golden Age of Science Fiction, when we didn't know enough science to understand most of the fiction was impossible. There's no life on Mars or at least none able to invade Earth, and the Galactics, if any, don't call back. However, in the 1940s many of us believed we'd soon be mining the moon - already technically possible - and by 2000 have explored solar space. But you know what happened.
We went to the moon for the wrong reasons, without a backup plan and with no vision. The Little Earthers prevailed, those who say this planet is enough; who cares what's out there; and we should be content to cultivate our pastures, improve our lot and use our resources to make things better on earth. But I've never bought this; I do not believe the human race was made to ruminate and rusticate like sheep.
I believe we're made to push the envelope, climb mountains, cross the void, strive for heaven and raise hell in Hell if we could locate it. I recall the Little Englanders who could never see beyond their gardens and politics. It was the adventurers and misfits who braved the oceans in cockleshell ships, landed on hostile shores and made America in the first place. Providence provided enough people who paid the price of admiralty, to feed their seas with ships and bones. Without curiosity and bravado, our kind might still be cowering up African trees or in Ice Age caves.***
The country that masters space technology is the country that is going to matter in the century to come. It could be us, but it doesn't have to be us.
A century from now no one will care or remember that we passed out a few dollars more or less in food stamps, or funded a few abortions more or less than we might have. The bullet points in your high school history class will be who led the way off the planet and how they did it.
Columbus sailed on borrowed money, and the brain drain during colonization bankrupted Spain. But the result was the building of a continent worth far more than anyone could have imagined. Not in terms of money, mind you, which is the least of ways to measure value, but in human terms. The building of modern America set up shock waves that have rearranged the world in ways no one could have predicted when Columbus was hanging around the Lisbon waterfront boring people with his crackpot theories.
Either you push forward, or you implode in slow-mo and cease to matter anymore. There is nothing wrong necessarily in being Belgian, if thats all you aspire to be. I'm sure they're very nice. But they're not going anywhere.