Majel Barrett Roddenberry said this quote

“ This is a new land, this is a new place, this is a new world, this is unknown. This is uncharted, this is all there is. We don't have any other place to go. I always quote Gene as saying Why are we now going into space? Well, why did we trouble to look past the next mountain? Our prime obligation to ourselves is to make the unknown known. We are on a journey to keep an appointment with whatever we are. And that was his whole philosophy of Star Trek, of life, of everything else. ”