For space exploration sure, but astronomy was a pretty big deal for centuries before space flight was a remote possibility. But I think the fact that the stars

For space exploration sure, but astronomy was a pretty big deal for centuries before space flight was a remote possibility. But I think the fact that the stars are staring you in the face on a regular basis when you look up has to have been a big influence there. For our hypothetical tidally locked culture, the stars would be, to most people, more akin to the cosmic microwave background. They’d be something scientists could take pictures of and form theories about, but totally removed from everyday experience.