Author's Note: This is and old post that I had saved as "draft" and then forgot about -- I still think it is important, so rather than drop it, I am posting it today.

---

I believe it was Arthur C. Clarke who said, "The Earth is far too small and fragile a basket for Humanity to keep all her eggs in." This is a sentiment that I have long agreed with, and advocated whenever presented the opportunity. Now, in the article referenced above, six-time astronaut John Young states a similar belief:

Bad things are inevitably going to happen to us, like comet or asteroid impacts or super volcanoes. Flying in space is risky business, but just staying on this planet is risky business too. The statistical risk of humans getting wiped out in the next 100 years due to a super volcano or asteroid or comet impact is 1 in 455. How does that relate? You're 10 times more likely to get wiped out by a civilization-ending event in the next 100 years than you are getting killed in a commercial airline crash.

The fact is that we know that a catastrophic event HAS OCCURRED in the past, and it nearly wiped out all life on Earth. Luckily for us, it killed off the large, predatory lizards, and left some of the small, adaptive mammals alive. To assume that such an event cannot happen again is pure naivete. There are a limited number of defenses against the kinds of events that can cause that kind and scale of devastation, and most of them are beyond our current understanding of science and technology.

It's not the point that we should move (to another planet). It's the point that the technologies that we need to live and work in other places in the solar system will help us survive on Earth when these bad things happen.

Here is where I disagree with the esteemed Mr. Young. I do agree that it is not that we should move everyone to another planet (that would only transfer the problem to another environment), but rather that we should EXPAND to other planets. All of our technologies will be useless if the threat comes from an area of science that we were not expecting, or if the scale of the event is several orders of magnitude more powerful than we can handle. The only way to ensure that a catastrophic event on this planet will not render the Human race extinct is to put Humans on other planets. Yes, I intended to type that as a plural. This world, this planet, is growing smaller by the day. There are too many people, trying to occupy too little room, and pissing each other off a lot in the process. Employers and governments are becoming more oppressive, both because of security concerns and because of too few resources (jobs, money, land, ideas, etc) to go around. When a similar situation was brewing in Europe back in olden days, people started leaving for the "new world" -- i.e. America. Let's face it: at no time in the history of humanity has it been possible to "retrain" the bigots, racists, or other a$$holes to play nice with everyone else. And their undesirable personality traits tend to be passed on to their children, whether we like it or not. If these people want to live in a world without a certain type of person in it, then fine -- let them start one themselves. It makes this world a nicer place, and keeps them busy trying to stay alive on another planet. The environmentalists should love the idea of getting a large number of the current population off of this planet, because it reduces the strain on "mother Earth." I have never understood why they did not speak out in favor of the space program, because it seems like a natural solution to their issues. There are other arguments I could probably think of, but this is getting long enough already. Comments are open if you want to suggest some (or present a dissenting viewpoint).