> > We should be doing more with the money -- taking flight to Mars, establishing a foothold on that planet. A permanent base on Mars.
>
> I totally agree. We never know what might happen to Earth one day by something that is done by the human race or Mother Nature herself.

This is one of the main reasons people give for colonising other planets. The second part, I agree with completely. It's not that "we never know" what nature will do to Earth some day, but that we *do* know. We know a whole huge range of natural events that can happen to make a planet uninhabitable for us, or destroy it altogether, and we also know that they WILL happen to Earth sooner or later. This isn't a possibility. It's a fact.

Of course, the human race might be gone from here, for any number of reasons, before Earth has. But now that we are at the edge of being capable of moving to other planets, I believe we *do* need to make an effort to do it, just because we can't predict exactly when our home planet is going to bite the big one via natural causes.

On the other hand, I couldn't disagree more with the first half of this argument, which deals with human-created uninhabitability. It seems to lead to a "Yeah, we've totally messed up this one. It's OK, there are plenty more out there" viewpoint. (Preemptive disclaimer: No, I am NOT saying this is what bandaids personally believes.) If I thought I was still going to be around by the time people are actively colonising other planets, I'd be interested to see what effect that has on our attitude to conservation. I'd like to think we get better at it, but the cynical side of me says nothing ever changes *that* much.