This is not a post about comics.
Not long ago NASA's latest Mars lander touched down on the Red Planet. It traveled 422 million miles to get there. That's a very long way. It cost about half a billion dollars to put it there. I for one think it's worth it.
Like a lot of people who read comics I was raised on science fiction. For me, space has always held an intrinsic fascination. it still does, of course. Otherwise I wouldn't read comics like Green Lantern Corps or still watch episodes of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
We don't really know that much about what's out there. Which is why there is so much fiction and fantasy written and produced about it. And I love that. But for me, it's not enough. I want to know what's really out there. I want to know if there is telepathic, shape-shifting, ice cream-creating, fire-fearing life on Mars. Or if there ever was.
And I want to know if there is nothing but permafrost as well. Because no matter what's out there we need to explore it. Exploration of all the infinite frontiers is one of the things that makes us human. Some people think it's a waste of money; they wonder why we should bother exploring space.
I'll tell you why we should be exploring space: because it's there. It's out there and we're down here. And if we can go there -- if we can get even the tiniest glimpse of what's beyond the world we know, then it's worth it.
We probably won't find any Kryptonians. And I hope we don't meet any world-ravaging artificial intelligences. But we will find something there. But only if we reach for those stars...
