NASA Johnson/YouTube
If you've ever wondered what drives someone to look up at the sky - or out across the sea - and say: "I want to be out there," NASA's got an answer for you.
"It is a drive inside each and every one of us, a drive to wonder, to push the boundaries, and to explore," a NASA video explains. It's just who we are.
The video, originally uploaded to YouTube in 2012, was one of the first things posted to NASA's new Tumblr blog, launched this week (yes, NASA now has a Tumblr, and it's awesome and full of great stuff).
The video ties the history of human exploration together, from the times that people set sail on an unknown ocean to our journeys now.
In the Tumblr post, NASA talks about how astronaut Scott Kelly is now spending a year in space, so we can learn how the human body changes in that time. We're also building the new Orion spacecraft, which is being "built to take humans farther than they've ever gone before."
As the video says:
We have always looked up. For centuries, we wondered what was on the other side of the sky, and we have begun to answer that question. We have learned that all the exploration humankind has achieved is only a beginning.
Everything we have ever accomplished leads to this moment in time, where exploration will now take us to the planets and the stars.
Pretty cool stuff.
Check out the YouTube video below: