We went to the Moon as technicians; we returned as humanitarians.
Edgar MitchellRead
We're at a point in history were we have to become a part of the neighborhood of inhabited planets, like a neighborhood of a community, which we have not even acknowledged that that community exists up until this point.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes the need for humanity to recognize our place in a larger cosmic community.
Edgar Mitchell's quote highlights the crucial moment in human history where we must acknowledge our connection to other inhabited planets. It suggests that just as a community must recognize its neighbors, humanity must expand its perspective beyond Earth and accept that we are part of a broader universe filled with potential life, fostering a sense of unity and responsibility towards this expanded community.
In practice
Using this quote during a panel discussion on space exploration and humanity's future.
We went to the Moon as technicians; we returned as humanitarians.
We should be ready to reach out beyond our planet and beyond our solar system to find out what is really going on out there.
We need to make the world safe for creativity and intuition, for it's creativity and intuition that will make the world safe for us.
You develop an instant global consciousness, a people orientation, an intense dissatisfaction with the state of the world, and a compulsion to do something about it. From out there on the moon, international politics looks so petty.
My view of our planet was a glimpse of divinity.
I experienced an ecstasy of unity. I not only saw the connectedness, I felt it and experienced it sentiently. The restraints and boundaries of flesh and bone fell away.
It is always noteworthy that all those who seriously study this science [the theory of numbers] conceive a sort of passion for it.
If someone says that he can think or talk about quantum physics without becoming dizzy, that shows only that he has not understood anything whatever about it.
The fossil reserves that have already been discovered exceed what can ever be safely used. Yet companies spend half a trillion dollars each year searching for more fuel. They should redirect this money toward developing clean energy solutions
Everybody who's a physician, who makes vaccines, who wants to find the cure for cancer. Everybody who wants to do any medical good for humankind got the passion for that before he or she was 10.
Given the power and influence that science increasingly has in our daily lives, it is important that we as citizens of an open and democratic society learn to separate good science from bunk. This is not just a matter of intellectual curiosity, as it affects where large portions of our tax money go, and in some cases even whether people’s lives are lost as a result of nonsense.
Evolution is a process of constant branching and expansion.
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