The stunning photos from the Hubble Space Telescope released last week by NASA are a vivid reminder of why people on Earth are drawn to — and must continue — the exploration of outer space.

The timing may or may not have been intentional, but the release of the photos came just days after the release of findings by a blue-ribbon panel assigned to review America’s human spaceflight program. Although the panel confirmed that Mars is a most enticing target for space exploration, current financial resources will put such flights out of reach for the foreseeable future.

President Barack Obama created the panel to review reports of serious technical and budget problems at NASA. The panel concluded:

“The U.S. human spaceflight program appears to be on an unsustainable trajectory. It is perpetuating the perilous practice of pursing goals that do not match allocated resources. Space operations are among the most complex and unforgiving pursuits ever undertaken by humans. It really is rocket science.”

The solution, however, is not to give up. The panel examined several scenarios that would delay the retirement of the space shuttle program, now scheduled for 2010, and to keep the international space station operating until 2020 rather than crashing it into the Pacific in 2016. Mars is too difficult and expensive a goal for now, the panel said, but maybe NASA could build rockets that travel around the inner solar system, visiting asteroids or perhaps a Martian moon. Even that, they said, would require an additional $3 billion a year on top of NASA’s current $18 billion budget.

Spending money on the space program is a tough sell for many Americans who see so many needs here on Earth. Yet, the very nature of our race is to question and want to learn more about the universe. We don’t know exactly how that knowledge will benefit us, but it’s always better to know.

Then we see the photos from the Hubble, photos made possible by a shuttle mission last spring that made repairs, installed two new cameras and added other scientific instruments to the telescope. After seeing the colorful views of stars in various stages of development and celestial events taking place 7,500 light years away, how can we not want to know more?

Now may not be the time to fund a major new project like a mission to Mars, but we can’t give up on space exploration. The blue-ribbon panel has made some reasonable suggestions to keep things moving until the new Ares 1 rocket and Orion crew capsule are ready to put Americans into orbit, probably in 2017. Hopefully funding can be found to realize those plans and fund the projects that will set the stage for America’s continued exploration of the worlds beyond.