The Hello and welcome to the space Policy Edition of Planetary Radio, the monthly show where we explore

the politics and processes behind space exploration.

I'm Casey Dreyer, the chief of space policy here at the planetary society.

Why do we explore space?

This is perhaps one of the most simple questions that we hear all the time as space advocates and honestly one of the most difficult ones to answer.

There is no single response that captures the full breadth of motivations and reasons for why we go.

And I'm not alone in struggling with this.

Even elite committees on the National Academies of Science struggling with

this.

these

the National Academies of Sciences have struggled to answer this question

succinctly and have proposed long lists of varied reasons

that are all very good with no single overriding reason topping

them all.

It's also a question that I'm not totally sure we'll ever have a clear answer. I think part of the problem is in its very framing.

Space is not a destination, it's a medium. It's like saying why we go to the ocean. The question doesn't make sense really without some context of what you're trying to do there. Do you go to swim, do you go to do research, do you go to sunbathes, do you go to fish.

All of those are valid reasons, but there's no one reason that drives everyone to go to the ocean, right?

Space is the same idea.

But I think space is so new to us as a species

in terms of accessibility and so so novel, that we tend to flatten this vast range of possible activities

and destinations and challenges of being there into a single word, just space.

So how can you ever answer that simple question, that seemingly simple question,

...