Why We Explore

FAIN: GA-280623-21

Space Foundation (Colorado Springs, CO 80907-3445)
Richard C. Cooper (Project Director: January 2021 to February 2021)
Richard Cooper (Project Director: February 2021 to October 2024)

The project, “Why We Explore,” address what inspires humans to explore, from a cultural and social perspective.  With historic achievements in exploration now realized and new goals and frontiers emerging each day, the social, cultural, and economic impacts of space exploration on our daily lives are equally as important as the science and technology that support it. Further, with the Federal Government’s charge to reignite American’s space legacy and develop a unique branch of the military to protect it, now is the right time to reconvene a dialogue to ask, and more accurately answer the question, “Why do we explore?” This project will position the country’s ever-evolving attitudes toward space and exploration, in both the public and private sectors, in the larger context of similar attitudes visible throughout the world in a wide variety of cultures, with the goal of launching a larger dialogue about the role that space exploration plays in the human experience.