I think humanity as a civilization has to “leave the cradle of Earth” and look to colonising other worlds. Not only in the search to advance technology, find resources, but also as a means to “back-up” the history and accomplishments as a civilization and ensure they go on in some form - if an asteroid wiped out Earth, the human race would be completely lost.

That’s a popular misconception, which illustrates a clear lack of public knowledge when it comes to space travel and exploration.

A huge number of medical and technological advancements owe their existence to our venturing into space, without which, our lives would be very, very different.

I’d hazard a guess and say that significantly more money has been lost on the stock market (with the recent losses being only a fraction of the total) over the last century than has been spent on space exploration.

Similarly, more has been spent on pointless, self-serving conflicts over the last century, such as the recent idiotic exploits in Iraq.

Whatever you may think about space exploration, it is our future, which I’ll be covering in more detail in part two, today…