Posted on 17 July 2009

“Why do it? It’s not for practicality. We didn’t go to the moon to spin off cooling suits and freeze-dried fruit. Any technological return is a bonus, not a reason. We go for the wonder and glory of it. Or, to put it less grandly, for its immense possibilities. We choose to do such things, said JFK, ‘not because they are easy, but because they are hard.’ And when you do such magnificently hard things — send sailing a Ferdinand Magellan or a Neil Armstrong — you open new human possibility in ways utterly unpredictable.


The greatest example? Who could have predicted that the moon voyages would create the most potent impetus to — and symbol of — environmental consciousness here on Earth: Earthrise, the now iconic Blue Planet photograph brought back by Apollo 8?“

                                – the Moon We Left Behind (via Andrew Potter)

I dunno. Isn’t it possible that as much social good, in both a practical and intangible sense, could come from deep sea voyaging?

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