Matt Giwer wrote:

The thread of course covered exploration of the physical world as in
Columbus. And I pointed out just how damned few explorers like him there
have been.

It's a bait and switch argument. In order to justify government
funding for space exploration, the proponent claims that exploration
is an inherent human drive and, as evidence, points out all
sorts of human activities that could be called 'exploration',
not just of the geographical variety.

The problem is that if exploration is defined that broadly, why
is only space exploration able to satisfy this putative drive?

(I will leave aside the question of whether something being
a human drive is sufficient to justify government subsidy.)

Paul