Science and Exploration

NASA Administrator Mike Griffin gave a speech at Goddard Space Flight Center last week. Unfortunately I was too busy to get over and see it. The link above points to the text version of the speech. Mike made some good points about the role of Science at NASA (since W's Vision for Space Exploration was released, there has been significant concern at NASA and in the science community that Exploration initiatives would steal all the funding from Science.)

Anyone interested in space, and whether/why humans should travel beyond low Earth orbit should have a look. Here's an excerpt (via SpaceRef)...

So a key point must be made: Exploration without science is not "tourism". It is far more than that. It is about the expansion of human activity out beyond the Earth. Exactly this point was very recently noted and endorsed by no less than Stephen Hawking, a pure scientist if ever there was one. Hawking joins those, including the Chairman of the NASA Advisory Council, who have long pointed out this basic truth: The history of life on Earth is the history of extinction events, and human expansion into the Solar System is, in the end, fundamentally about the survival of the species. So to me exploration is, in and of itself, equally as noble a human endeavor as is scientific discovery.