D. Inevitable extinction outweighs earth impacts- must become multiplanetary to survive

(Jason is editorial director of Singularity Hub. He researched and wrote about finance and economics before moving on to science and technology. 10-19)

Why blow billions of dollars on space exploration when billions of people are living in poverty here on Earth? You’ve likely heard the justifications. The space program brings us useful innovations and inventions. Space exploration delivers perspective, inspiration, and understanding. Because it’s the final frontier. Because it’s there. What you haven’t heard is anything to inspire a sense of urgency. Indeed, NASA’s struggle to defend its existence and funding shows how weak these justifications sound to a public that cares less about space than seemingly more pressing needs. Presumably, this is why SpaceX founder Elon Musk, in a fascinating interview with Ross Andersen, skipped all the usual arguments in favor of something else entirely. Space exploration, he says, is as urgent as easing poverty or disease—it’s our insurance policy against extinction. As we extend our gaze back through geologic time and out into the universe, it’s clear we aren’t exempt from nature’s carelessly terrifying violence. We simply haven’t experienced its full wrath yet because we’ve only been awake for the cosmological blink of an eye. Musk says an extinction-level event would, in an existential flash, make our down-to-earth struggles irrelevant. “Good news, the problems of poverty and disease have been solved,” he says, “but the bad news is there aren’t any humans left.’” We’ve got all our eggs in one basket, and that’s a terrible risk-management strategy. We should diversify our planetary portfolio to insure against the worst—and soon. Musk’s line of reasoning isn’t completely novel. It’s what led science fiction writer Larry Niven to say, “The dinosaurs became extinct because they didn’t have a space program.” And it drives Ed Lu’s quest to save humanity from a major asteroid hit. But while we may spot and potentially derail asteroids, not every cosmic threat can be so easily predicted or prevented—a blast from a nearby supernova; a gamma ray burst aimed at Earth; a period of extreme volcanism. Any of these could wipe us out. Musk says he thinks a lot about the silence we’ve been greeted with as our telescopes scan the sky for interstellar broadcasts from other civilizations. seti-fermi-paradoxGiven the sheer number of galaxies, stars, and planets in the universe—it should be teeming with life. If even a tiny percent of the whole is intelligent, there should be thousands of civilizations in our galaxy alone. So where are they? This is known as the Fermi Paradox, and Musk rattles off a few explanatory theories (there are many). But he settles on this, “If you look at our current technology level, something strange has to happen to civilizations, and I mean strange in a bad way. It could be that there are a whole lot of dead, one-planet civilizations.” That something strange might be an evolutionary self-destruct button, as Carl Sagan theorized. We developed modern rockets at the same time as nuclear weapons. But the Fermi Paradox and its explanations, while philosophically captivating, haven’t settled the question of intelligent life. SETI’s Seth Shostak cautions, “The Fermi Paradox is a big extrapolation from a very local observation.” That is, just because we don’t see compelling evidence of galactic colonization around here doesn’t mean there is none. But even without the Fermi Paradox, our planet’s geologic record is enough to show that, as Sagan phrased it, “Extinction is the rule. Survival is the exception.” So, if you buy Musk’s argument—what next? Well, he didn’t start SpaceX to boost telecommunication satellites into orbit or shuttle astronauts to low-Earth orbit. SpaceX is Musk’s vehicle to another planet, and he isn’t shy saying so.