The chapter opens with a discussion of why humans go into space. The narrator compares ants to a three-dimensional entity, and asks if there is a scientific reason for humans to go into outer space. He says that there are many problems that humans face on earth, and he wonders why they spend so much money on useless missions. He wonders if there might be a reason to go to outer space if there weren't any scientific results to prove it. He compares himself to the ants, and says that he sees some slight differences between himself and the ants. The ants, he says, don't seem to have the same problems as humans, and they can't figure out a way to solve them. They're too selfish to solve the problems on earth. They also consider themselves to be terraformes, or "living organisms" . They think of themselves as a kind of copy of themselves, and that they're trying to create a copy of the world. He adds that he doesn't know how to boil down these thoughts into a coherent argument, but he does know that he's been given an assignment to come up with a woman. The assignment is to find her and bring her back to earth. He admits that this isn't a good idea, because it'll be hard to convince her to come back to Earth