April 10, 2012
Nice to see someone get it
Do you see a space-faring civilization as a way of defending humanity against a catastrophe on Earth?Absolutely. We would be backing up the biosphere. We wouldn't just be preserving humanity, we would be preserving much of life. It is certainly possible for some calamity to come along — as we see in the several major extinction events in the fossil record. Humanity has obviously developed the means of destroying itself, so I think we need planetary redundancy to protect against the unlikely possibility of natural or man-made Armageddon.
It is important that we take action now to make life multi-planetary, because this is really the first point in the 4-billion-year history of Earth that it has been possible. That window of possibility will hopefully be open for a long time, but it may only be open for a short time. That's why I think urgent action is required on making life multi-planetary.
It is nice to see someone get it. Especially someone in a position to take positive action.
Reductions of existential risk have an amazingly large importance, making even low-probability of success projects worthwhile.
This is why we need something better than the shuttle.
Posted by Anders3 at April 10, 2012 08:30 PM