The idea of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey is simple, map 1/4 of the night sky as precisely as possible. Of course, with 100 million celestial objects to map, that's a lot harder than it sounds. From my standpoint, there is nothing quite as humbling as understanding the vast size of the universe, nor as encouraging as the fact that we have the audacity to try.
Much of modern science was developed from the observations of early astronomers trying to understand the motions of celestial objects. It took thousands of years of observations to develop Newton's Laws or Einstein's theory of relativity. The Sloan project will no doubt open our eyes to forces that we didn't even realize existed, but not until it's observations have been completed, cataloged, and analyzed.
It's sometimes hard to "sell" projects like Sloan, where there is no clear goal beyond the accumulation of knowledge. This is regrettable because it is precisely these kinds of projects that make real innovations in science possible. Carl Sagan said it well when he said: "Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known." If you get a chance, check out their website.
Sloan Digital Sky Survey
Night Sky
