Reduce the World to the dimensions of Man, expand Man to the dimensions of the World…. Who today would dare propose such an ambitious project to our human societies and their members? This is however, exactly what the Space enterprise has achieved for almost one half of a century. Immense task, may be impossible, because we do not dare tell which one of the two infinities, which are the World and Man, is the most profound and the most frightening. Also, however, thanks to remote observation satellites and telecommunications satellites, thanks to the inter-planetary satellite probes and the space telescopes, and finally thanks to the manned flights, Man has given himself the means to discover the World which surrounds him, to size it up and , by so doing, to arrive at a better knowledge of himself.
In fact, this dual movement of concentration and expansion is nothing else that the foundations of what Western thinkers, at the dawn of modern times, have named humanism. Far from being an arrogant claim, the humanist proposal seeks rather to make Man even more human, by making him participate in all that may enrich him in nature and history.
Space, taken altogether as geographical location and as human activity, presents itself therefore today to us, as a real challenge. It demands from us that we consecrate in it some scientific tools, technical and economic, that we add also some judicial and ethical thinking and above all, before and beyond all that, that we question ourselves about the identity, the human personality which invests itself in it and emerges from it. The new frontier is not so much Space but Man himself.
Dr.
Jacques
Arnould
French Space Agency (CNES)
Professional Category:
Social Sciences
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