Reasons why Humans want to Explore Space

     There are various reasons why humans are very interested in space exploration. The reason that readily comes to most people's minds is curiosity, or need to know. The same curiosity that sends humans to the deepest areas of our oceans, such as the Mariana Trench or to unexplored areas of dry land such as deep into the Amazon Jungle and int to the vast frigid interior of the Antarctica or down into the unexplored underwater caves. It's the same curiosity that impels us to probe the microscopic realities of the quantum universe and causes us to ponder about other dimensions and realms might lie just just beyond our meager reach.  We need to know what is or there in that seemingly endless enigmatic, seemingly endless darkness of space and so we reach out with our  feeble instruments in order to get our answers and yearn to see the yet humanly unseen wonders that might lie beyond.

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      But there are also  much more mundane reasons for the human desire to explore. One is the human survival of a worldwide catastrophe that might render Earth unfit for human habitation.  Those who don't believe in a creator imagine some asteroid, comet or even rogue star, world or rogue black hole that might come barreling out of the darkness straight for us. Also, they consider  a global disaster that would make  escaping underground, as humans are shown doing  in the film Matrix, an impossibility a good reason to have somewhere else to go.   

     Or perhaps some nearby star that might have gone supernova.  Or maybe some super-volcanic activity that might render our atmosphere unbreathable.   Geologists tell us that geological global events have wiped out most of Earth's life before and such catastrophic  have been offered as viable explanation supported by data which seem to confirm them. So having somewhere else in our solar system or beyond where to hide in order to survive as a species would provide them with a certain peace of mind.  

Supernovas

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near-Earth_supernova

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     Yet another reason for space exploration is to utilize the vast mineral resources that are out there. But before we gather such riches, we need to explore to see where they are located. The Lunar soil is one. The Asteroid belt is another. The atmospheres of the Gas giants Jupiter and Saturn giants rich in hydrogen are yet another. The conquistadors of the Americas were motivated by dreams of becoming rich and so are humans who are tempted by the tantalizing riches in space.