Defining Exploration

Over the latest few centuries, physical exploration meant people risking life and limb sailing the oceans in wooden ships, or trekking into the wilderness, or encountering new societies, or dogsledding to the poles.  Recently, it has also meant flying into space, even landing on the Moon.

Today, the teams of scientists and engineers who operate the fleet of probes and rovers at Mars, Cassini at Saturn, and other space missions see themselves as space explorers.  Staying in Pasadena, California, of course, is not the same as enduring a winter in the Rockies, or a hurricane on the high seas, or a caravan across the Sahara.  Still, the teams have a point.  They are increasing our understanding of the cosmos by directing missions that reach beyond Earth.  It is the intellectualization of exploration.  Will that have the same influence on the general public as tales and testimonies of courageous explorers performing great deeds?  We will see.