We have entered, almost without noticing, an age of exploration and discovery unparalleled since the Renaissance. It seems to me that the practical b… - Carl Sagan

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We have entered, almost without noticing, an age of exploration and discovery unparalleled since the Renaissance. It seems to me that the practical benefits of comparative planetology for Earthbound sciences; the sense of adventure imparted by the exploration of other worlds to a society that has almost lost the opportunity for adventure; the philosophical implications of the search for a cosmic perspective — these are what will in the long run mark our time. Centuries hence, when our very real political and social problems may be as remote as the very real problems of the War of the Austrian Succession seem to us, our time may be remembered chiefly for one fact: this was the age when the inhabitants of the Earth first made contact with the cosmos around them.