The anticipation of progress has been supplanted by a foreboding of technological ruin. I look into my children's eyes and ask myself what kind of future we are preparing for them. The visions we present to our children shape the future. It matters what those visions are. Often they become self-fulfilling prophecies.
Dreams are maps.
Continuing, cooperative planetary exploration cannot solve all our problems. It is merely one component of a solution. But it is practical, readily understood, cost-effective, peaceful and stirring. Like Tom Paine, I believe it is our responsibility to create a future worthy of our children, to fulfill the promise made decades ago by Sputnik 1 and Mariner 2, to open up the universe to those intrepid explorers from planet Earth. Copyright 1987 by Carl Sagan.