Pale Blue Dot, Ch. 6 Conclusion

Just for today, a little quote from Carl Sagan's Pale Blue Dot:

It is conventional wisdom now that anything built by the government will be a disaster. But the two Voyager spacecraft were built by the government (in partnership with that other bugaboo, academia). They came in at cost, on time, and vastly exceeded their design specifications--as well as the fondest dreams of their makers. Seeking not to control, threaten, wound, or destroy, these elegant machines represent the exploratory part of our nature set free to roam the Solar System and beyond. This kind of technology, the treasures it uncovers freely available to all humans everywhere, has been, over the last few decades, one of the few activities of the United States admired as much by those who abhor many of its policies as by those who agree with it on every issue. Voyager cost each American less than a penny a year from launch to Neptune encounter. Missions to the planets are one of those things--and I mean this not just for the United States, but for the human race--that we do best.