"Our values and yearnings"

“It’s impossible to gaze at the photos of Pluto sent back by the New Horizons spacecraft, and not be awash with wonder at the marvels of nature and the daring behind our choice to explore it. […] It matters not that [New Horizons] is a machine: We made it, which means it embodies our values and yearnings and speaks to our sense of ourselves as fully as any painting or cathedral might. We anthropomorphize the machines, as we should.”

— Steve Pyne, The Meaning of NASA’s New Images of Pluto, The Atlantic, October 10, 2015

Image: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute. Licensed under Public Domain via Creative Commons (link)

Thanks to @DarrenMilligan for the find.