Richard Feyn­n­man

Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some prac­ti­cal results, but that’s not why we do it.

― Richard P. Feynman

Feyn­man could have been say­ing that about any of the sciences.

I have a per­sonal obses­sion to study sci­ence in gen­eral, and space sci­ence in par­tic­u­lar. This mad­ness has been with me for as long as I can remem­ber. I already felt it on Sep­tem­ber 12th, 1962, when, at the age of six, I saw Pres­i­dent Kennedy on tele­vi­sion, speak­ing as if directly to me. That was the day he com­mit­ted Amer­ica to lit­er­ally reach for the Moon. I’ve never been the same. Nei­ther has the rest of the world.

Log­a­rchism is a polit­i­cal blog. What has my obses­sion with space to do with pol­i­tics? I’ve writ­ten about this before. Pol­i­tics, like sci­ence, some­times gives prac­ti­cal results, but that’s not why we do it. Sure, prac­ti­cal­ity is the rea­son we give our­selves. Hon­estly though, how much of the rhetoric asso­ci­ated with pol­i­tics, how much of the game play­ing and the issues that drive peo­ple to the polls, has actual prac­ti­cal value? Some, yes, but birth cer­tifi­cates? See­ing Rus­sia? Really?

Many of these things serve other pur­poses. The real value of space sci­ence is not prac­ti­cal, unless learn­ing about your­self, about real­ity, about how the uni­verse actu­ally works, is prac­ti­cal. (more…)