Telos
Apropos space exploration for survival:
“In modern Western society,” writes the scholar Charles Lindholm, “the erosion of tradition and the collapse of accepted religious belief leaves us without a telos [an end to which we strive], a sanctified notion of humanity’s potential. Bereft of a sacred project, we have only a demystified image of a frail and fallible humanity no longer capable of becoming god-like.”
I believe it is healthy—indeed, essential—to keep our frailty and fallibility firmly in mind. I worry about people who aspire to be “god-like.” But as for a long-term goal and a sacred project, there is one before us. On it the very survival of our species depends. If we have been locked and bolted into a prison of the self, here is an escape hatch—something worthy, something vastly larger than ourselves, a crucial act on behalf of humanity. Peopling other worlds unifies nations and ethnic groups, binds the generations, and requires us both to be smart and wise. It liberates our nature and, in part, returns us to our beginnings. Even now, this new telos is within our grasp.
– Carl Sagan