You're going to get nailed for not being more specific, but you can't be. We won't know what we find until we find it.
When Marco Polo headed East, who could have imagined what he would find, or the riches he would come back with -- riches both material and cultural.
If Queen Isabella had asked Columbus what were the benefits of your proposed voyage, and answer would have been totally inadequate and totally wrong. He found an entire new continent, on party of which emerged the most powerful and wealthy country the world has ever known. But nobody in their wildest imaginations would have predicted that.
When Jefferson sent Lewis and Clark Westward to explore, he could never have imagined what they would have discovered.
The very nature of exploration is that you cannot know what it is that you will find, what the benefits will be, until you go.
So the skeptics who say "prove to me that it will be worth it" can never be satisfied, but if they are allowed to prevail the human race will stagnate and die off.
That's about the only answer you can give. In every generation there are the naysayers. Those who told Marco Polo to stay home and tend his garden. Those who told Columbus he was a fool, and Isabella she was a greater fool for funding him. Those who told Lewis and Clark they were wasting their time and the government's money. But when we let the naysayers win, we're done as a race. |
