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How often it has been said that knowledge will set you free. It seems, though, that as people learn more about the world around them, they start to become more narrow-minded. Why is this, you may ask. Well, I'm no qualified sociologist or psychologist, but I ain't stupid, either. The more you learn, the more frustrated you become. It is a fact of life. With every question that you answer, another pair, dozen, or thousand pop up in it's place. It is impossible to learn everything. Why is this such a problem? As a society, we believe that we can do just about anything that we want, sooner or later. Concepts of impossibility and reason don't resonate well with our instincts. We've come so far in such a short amount of time. Would you believe that homo sapiens have been on the earth for less than a million years, and we've already explored most of our planet, overcome a few basic evolutionary disadvantages, explored our moon in person, landed probes on two planets and one asteroid, photographed all the planets and most of their moons, shot 2 or 3 probes past our solar system with messages for any life they might encounter, sent out millions of radio signals, heard the echoes of creation, and figured out what the universe is mostly comprised of. Whew, that's a lot. Most of the really impressive stuff we've done in the past 50 years, too. Doesn't that just make you feel like anything is possible? Doesn't that just inspire you to head off for 51 Pegasai and hope you don't fry?*

The basic fact is, the solar system is our playground, now. The asteroids, Mars, Europa, and of course our own moon are well within reach. We could go to Mars tomorrow if the public was willing to fund it. That, and you'd have to find someone willing to spend three years of their life away from everyone they know.

I'll go.

Who wouldn't?

Forget the moon, it's just a quarter of a million miles away. It's OUR satelite, I should certainly hope we could get there at least. But MARS. Wow. That's heavy. I mean, that is a totally different planet altogether, an atmosphere, decent gravity, serious terrain... It's another world. Dangling right in front of our noses.

I guess I lost the point. Oh, well, the "Our Universe kicks major @$$" point is relevant, too. Besides, since when do you people come here to listen to me make sense? Get out of here!