# Space is a worthy frontier To say explicitly what has been alluded: striving for the stars is important for humanity. Venturing beyond earth is the best physical frontier left to us. It has all the characteristics of those frontiers that have driven human flourishing: it is hard, it can enable non-zero sum growth, forces us to strive against objective reality, and offers the potential to stumble upon new phenomena that can’t exist on earth (what would we discover if we could actually poke a neutron star with a stick or do chemistry in the Venusian atmosphere?) At the same time, space is hard.[[Space is the path of long pain]] — opening the space frontier will involve *more* net suffering over time than other paths. It would be much easier and safer to send our mechanical emissaries and spy across the vastness with ever-better telescopes. We could stay here on Earth in ever increasing comfort and explore deep into our own minds, eventually living completely in worlds of our own making. But does that path look anything like the things that have made humanity great? No more Polynesians plying the pacific, no more Leif Eriksons, no more Charles Lindberghs crossing the Atlantics, no more Marie Curie’s unveiling the workings of the universe at great cost. Is that actually flourishing? Space is hard. But the point of the frontier is that hardness hones flourishing. <[[Frontiers are hard]]> [^1]: Though it’s telling that we’ve reached the limits of earth-bound telescopes — better telescopes required putting them in orbit around the earth (Hubble) then orbit around the sun (James Webb) and potentially across the dark side of the Moon. [Web URL for this note](http://notes.benjaminreinhardt.com/Space+is+a+worthy+frontier) [Comment on this note](http://via.hypothes.is/http://notes.benjaminreinhardt.com/Space+is+a+worthy+frontier)