我们在太空中的使命

from Our Destiny in Space

地球已人满为患140亿的人充塞着每一个适于居住的、富饶的地区，甚至那些不宜生活的不毛之地，也到处都有人类的足迹。在人口日益膨胀的压力下，旷野正在消失；在与人类的生存竞争中，许多植物和动物正在灭绝；气候正在发生变化，土壤日趋贫瘠。但对人类来说，与自然环境的恶化相比，人满为患也许是一个更为严重的危险。约400万年以前，人类起源于东非；那时仅仅是一群为数不多的原始人。约200万年前，最早的原始人在人体结构上进化到接近现在归入“人类”的这一物种。

The Earth is full! Four billion people have crammed into every desirable and fruitful area and have spilled over into all the barren and inhospitable areas. Under the pressure of the fullness, the wilderness is disappearing, competing plants and animals are dying out;the weather is changing and the soil is failing. And yet there is perhaps an even more fundamental danger to humanity in the Earth＇s fullness than is represented by any sort of physical deterioration.Humanity began as a thin cluster of primitive hominids in East Africa about four million years ago. About two million years ago, the first hominids appeared who were sufficiently close in structure to the human being to be placed into genus Homo.