As far as we know, the universe has a diameter of around 93 billion light years and is 13.8 billion years old. Compared to that, we humans with our lifetime are not even a wind-blow and with our body size almost non-existent and our even smaller brain wants to try to decipher the riddle of this gigantic universe.
It is an adventure that people have taken to heart. To discover the secrets that the wide universe holds hidden.
Many always ask what sense it makes when we can never reach the limits of the universe with our short legs and limited lifetime? It is human curiosity that drives us ever further and it is deeply rooted in us and our evolution. While we are not curious, most of us at least, we probably would not be the intelligent species on our planet. Then we wouldn't be walking around today with smartphones in our hands and sharing our thoughts through social media. We couldn't even share our thoughts with one clicks with the internet... this is all the result of our curiosity.
The exploration of the universe is the inevitable further development of our curiosity. It is a kind of evolution. If we are actually the only highly developed life form in the universe (which I personally don't believe), then it is our cosmic responsibility to find out in order to better understand the gift of life.
We fly on our common spacecraft earth in space, which is considered to be our most important good, what we own, because if we are alone then we ourselves are the universe. Do we want to preserve or destroy it? And this already starts with our own home, our earth.
Space travel shows us that we are all in the same boat, that we are all the same. It blurs country borders. People from all over the world are working together to track down the mysteries of the universe. This is a change that is becoming more and more popular. We must all, but really all, begin to understand that there are no country borders in this sense for us humans. That the earth is our home. That we only have this one sphere. This is to be protected together as a team.
If we want to give ourselves a meaning, then that can only happen together, without borders, without skin colors, without sizes, without ages, without origins, without exclusion because of differences... without disputes and only with peace...
To try to understand the universe is one of the very few things that raise human life a little above the level of a farce.
Physics Nobel Prize winner Steven Weinberg
...and maybe our efforts will also be worthwhile at some point, in which I firmly believe.
