Why space travel

(Looking up and discovering Socrates.)    

Come who is this man who is in the basket?

        Dis.  Himself.

        Strep. Who's "Himself"?

        Dis. Socrates.

        Strep.  O Socrates!  Come, you sir, call upon him loudly for me.

        Dis.  Nay, rather, call him yourself;  for I have no leisure.

(Exit Disciple)

        Strep.  Socrates!  My little Socrates!

        Socrates.  Why callest thou me, thou creature of the day?

        Strep.  First tell me, I beseech you, what are you doing.

        Soc.  I am walking in the air, and speculating about the sun.

        Strep.  And so you look down upon the gods from your basket, and not from the earth?

        Soc.  For I should not have rightly discovered things celestial if I had not suspended the intellect,

                and mixed the thought  in a subtle form with its kindred air.

                But if, being on the ground, I speculated from below on things above,  I should never have

                discovered them.  For the earth forcibly attracts to itself the meditative moisture. 

                Water-cresses also suffer the very same thing. 

30 of the most famous tales from Greek Mythology