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The typical retort is that what there is, is a chance of survival for the human race in the event of total catastrophe befalling the Earth, albeit in reduced circumstances. Now sure, this is such a remote concern that it would be unlikely to motivate nations to make the expense. But that may say more about nations than about the soundness of the idea (depending on how much you value the survival of the human race).
This idea seems to come from scifi geeks thinking space is really cool, and trying to come up with some sort of justification for exploring it.
It's not hard to think of a catastrophe that would make the Earth unlivable, but space is already unlivable, unless you can terraform something, and that's a generations long project. Going into space won't be any better than going to Antarctica or the sea floor, or underground.
I don't understand this perspective. I'm not an astronomy or physics expert, but I did study it in school, and as best as I can tell, there is a scientific consensus that the Earth will become uninhabitable to humans due to the Sun expanding within the next 5 billion years. Which means that, if we want humanity to survive beyond that, we will have to figure out some way to sustainably live off of Earth (and likely off of the Solar System) between now and then. This, to me, has always been the justification for figuring out space exploration.
I'm partial to the argument that undertaking this project in the year 10^9 AD or even 10^6 AD might be a better use of resources than in the year 2025 AD. But I'm also partial to the argument that technology doesn't just progress through time alone, that we can always come up with excuses for why this would be easier or more efficient to tackle later, and as such, we might as well start working on it now.
Self-sustaining habitats in Antarctica or the sea floor or underground seem like decent short-term projects for catastrophes in the short term (as well as good settings for steampunk-inspired video games), but I don't see any way around space exploration for long term human survival, outside of even more outlandish things like time travel or portals.
By that reasoning we should have worked on rockets to the moon in 2000 BC.
Very few of either "realistic" hard scifi scenarios, or "realistic" speculative scenarios have us escaping the Earth only in 10^9 AD. The decades of scifi we've had about exploring the solar system have been about much more recent time periods. Sure, maybe we'd do it in 10^9 AD, but 10^9 AD is a long way off. and it isn't what everyone talking about this stuff wants.
And "excuses" is just a spin you put on "reasons".
I mean, if there were people with enough understanding of engineering and astronomy to even understand the very concept of what a "rocket to the moon" meant in 2000 BC, I think it would've been pretty cool if they'd started working on it then.
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