Space and Society

"Man is the animal that intends to shoot himself out into interplanetary space, after having given up on the problem of an efficient way to get himself five miles to work and back each day." ~Bill Vaughan

    In this modern age of computers and technology, this world we call Earth is starting to look small and crowded to human eyes. Ever since the beginning of time Man has looked up to the sky and wondering at the vastness of it all. From the luanching of the first man-made object into space, the USSR's Spuntnik 1, to the first landing on the moon by the American Apollo... Man has always yearned to explore the immense abyss known as space.
    Because humanity is always expanding, despite the constant death and war in our civilized society, we have begun searching and exploring space, in the hopes of finding intelligent life and new worlds. Don't you think it's ironic that inside every person's mind, there's a fear of discovering a highly intelligent lifeform that will invade Earth and eradicate humanity, yet we constantly send more and more things into space in search for them. Maybe humanity wants to live out it's mid-50's nightmare of being invaded by little green men that will suck out their brainstems and enslave all humans. (Sorry, I've been playing Destroy All Humans lately.)

    Why do we even bother searching into space? Why do we even bother dreaming up ideas of humanity immigrating to the stars? We have so many problems on our own home planet right now, yet we ignore it and look else where. Perhaps we're just trying to run away from our problems , quite literally, by leaving the planet and ab abandoning it all. If we can't even live on our own planet without problems, what hope would we have in space? Always, there are those who dream of the day where humanity is united as one and ruling over the universe, but those are just wild-eyed sci-fi fanatics that have been watching too much Star Trek or playing too much Halo. I'm not denying or rejecting the idea of space travel and colonization, I'm just saying that it's pretty much a lost cause right now. This world is divided, with Capitalists fearing Communists, Shiites fighting Suunites, or whichever else group that's killing another group right now. We call ourselves civilized, yet we quarrel to no end with each other like a group of kindergarteners day in and day out. The only thing civilized and grown-up about us is that we use tanks and guns for our fights, not tiny fists that aren't even pig enough to grasp an apple. Sometimes I wish that our government were run by kids, because atleast they have the mindset for the job; not those corrupt power hungry vultures sitting in Washington, sitting there plotting on how next to further their wealth and prosperity. This world is rife with our corruption and problems, I see no point in spreading them to space and the universe.