Humanity seems to have a natural attraction to what we might call “natural scenes.” Whether if you consider yourself a “nature person” or not, I believe few could honestly say that they haven’t found a mountain, a forest, a flower, a lake, etcetera… beautiful. Why we find these things beautiful is beyond my purview. I am no psychologist. But what I would like to point out is how much of a joy nature can be, and how much better it really does make our lives. Almost every great urban city has grand parks to remind us of that beauty and introduce us to it even within the confines of a man-made environment. And natural beauty really does bring the human race closer to one another. Theist, atheist, and agnostic alike find the same beauty in the natural things they see around them. In a forest, or on a mountain-top, political discussion – and thus political dispute – find little place. The natural world inspires great works of art that are enjoyed by countless men and women around the world of all races and creeds. But it’s not just the terrain and that which grows and lives on the ground that inspire us. Sunsets and sunrises commonly inspire aw, even on a daily basis. And the moon, too, throughout human history we have watched it and it has both amazed and baffled us. And stars, the very word star itself has become a byword for excellence.
Our love of nature extends into outer space, although many of us infrequently consider it. We are so blind to our aw of the planets because so few of us ever see them, except as a photograph or an illustration. Take Saturn as an example. Many people, when they consider Saturn, find adjectives like beautiful, wonderful and gorgeous along side it. And I believe they sincerely believe Saturn is all of these things. But the issue is that they hardly have any chance to enjoy the planet, because they never see it, or if they do, it’s only for a transitory moment through a telescope. And then all of a sudden, aw-inspiring things like our Solar System’s planets become associated with bulky, uncomfortable things like telescopes and observatories. They become associated with that expensive government agency NASA, and with rockets, and with the pictures they bring back to Earth. It’s just not a fun way to find beauty. But neither were small rat infested ships a fun way to find the beauties of whole continents five centuries ago. And the wonders of the American West were not discovered without an uncomfortable and unappealing journey to get there. Space is the same. Today, if we’re honest, it’s really no fun at all. It might have used to be, but that was when we pushed the envelope, and those moments of pushing envelopes was again transitory and fleeting. Or space may have been a little more fun in the 20th century because it was inherently political, and politics has long been an object of amusement in the U.S.. But for most of us today space is not the coolest thing in the universe.
But imagine how incredibly meaningful space will become when we’re there? Can you imagine how many great works of world literature could be written about nebulas and quasars? How many poems about the seas of Titan, the red bands of Jupiter or the rings of Saturn? How many landscapes will be painted from the surface of Europa? Can you see men and women asking for jewelry at the future’s jewelers based on the color of Neptune?