If we are to believe certain narrow minded people — and what else can we call them? — humanity is confined within a circle of Popilius from which there is no escape, condemned to vegetate upon this globe, never able to venture into interplanetary space! That’s not so! We are going to the moon, we shall go to the planets, we shall travel to the stars just as today we go from Liverpool to New York, easily, rapidly, surely, and the oceans of space will be crossed like the seas of the moon.
[À en croire certains esprits bornés, — c’est le qualificatif qui leur convient, — l’humanité serait renfermée dans un cercle de Popilius qu’elle ne saurait franchir, et condamnée à végéter sur ce globe sans jamais pouvoir s’élancer dans les espaces planétaires! Il n’en est rien! On va aller à la Lune, on ira aux planètes, on ira aux étoiles, comme on va aujourd’hui de Liverpool à New York, facilement, rapidement, sûrement, et l’océan atmosphérique sera bientôt traversé comme les océans de la Lune!]
Jules Verne (1828-1905) French novelist, poet, playwright
From the Earth to the Moon, ch. 19 “A Monster Meeting” (1865) [tr. Miller (1978)]
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Alt. trans: "In spite of the opinions of certain narrow-minded people, who would shut up the human race upon this globe, as within some magic circle which it must never outstep, we shall one day travel to the moon, the planets, and the stars, with the same facility, rapidity, and certainty as we now make the voyage from Liverpool to New York!" [tr. Scribner's "Uniform Edition" (1890)]
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Do you remember the ’60s and ’70s? You didn’t have to go more than a week before there was an article in Life magazine — “The Home of Tomorrow,” “The City of Tomorrow,” “Transportation of Tomorrow.” All that ended. In the 1970s, after we stopped going to the Moon, it all ended. We stopped dreaming. And so I worry that decisions that Congress makes doesn’t factor in the consequences of those decisions on tomorrow. Tomorrow’s gone. They’re playing for the quarterly report, they’re playing for the next election cycle, and that is mortgaging the actual future of this nation, and the rest of the world is going to pass us by.
Neil deGrasse Tyson (b. 1958) American astrophysicist, author, orator
Real Time with Bill Maher, Ep. 223 (5 Aug 2011)
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