"something of narcissism in this"

"It's clear, then, that always our real interest has been not in any particular place, but rather in our ability to get to that place.  It's the process of exploration itself that fascinates us, not the places we explore.  There is perhaps something of narcissism in this.  So, these days we hear all about the asteroids, the moons of Jupiter and Saturn, the clouds of Venus, and so on.  These places are the new focus of our interest, of our primal urge to walk over the next ridge and see what's there.  There are the next hardest place to reach, and said to be supremely fascinating, but what will happen when we reach them?

Anyway, now here I am, on the moon.  After the Americans got to it in the twentieth century, they left, and for a long time it rolled in our sky, empty as it had always been.  A bone-white ball of rubble.  Airless, freeze-dried, unlivable, without extractable resources.  Why go back, having been there already?"

-- Kim Stanley Robinson, Red Moon