Posthuman Blues

The High Cost of Boots on the Moon

Thanks to bureaucratic imperatives, the Terrestrial Planet Finder -- probably the most inspiring scientific instrument proposed in the history of astronomy -- is toast.

We're told it has to go to make room for renewed crewed exploration -- and eventual militarization -- of the Moon. We're asked to watch our future leeched into a brittle and joyless husk of its potential.

Ask most people about the Terrestrial Planet Finder and you'll be confronted with the empty gazes so characteristic of our century. To many, the future simply doesn't exist in any meaningful sense. We lack a sense of context. Our minds have been dulled to the point where urgency becomes virtually unthinkable.

The true history of our species will begin only if we muster the evolutionary nerve to migrate off-planet in large numbers. Right now we are confined to the womb and quietly drowning in our own feces.