[If there are civilizations elsewhere in the universe] Their eventual choice, as ours, is spaceflight or extinction.
Carl Sagan
...the only factor that appears to have improved a family of organisms’ chance of survival was widespread geographic colonization at the time of the event.
The Columbia Encyclopedia
The goal of the human spaceflight program should be to increase our survival prospects by colonizing space.
J. Richard Gott
The aim of astronautics is “to extend life to there”, to establish habitats beyond Earth. This should be achieved not only for its intrinsic value, but to ensure the safety of the human species through a critical stage of its development.
A civilization restricted to the surface of a single planet has inevitable threats to its long-term existence. Natural threats such as epidemics and impacts from space objects, and man-made threats such as nuclear and biological war, will be joined by new threats from emerging sciences and technologies.
If we have self-sufficient human settlements throughout the solar system, and access to life support technology on Earth, humankind would have a secure future. A global catastrophe, although terrible, would not end the human species and the potential of a universe filled with intelligent life.
We have a choice between two possible futures: spaceflight or extinction. To do nothing is a choice for the second future. The aim of this web site is to contribute towards the first.
The theme of this book is that humanity is more at risk than at any earlier phase in its history. The wider cosmos has a potential future that could even be infinite. But will these vast expanses of time be filled with life, or as empty as the Earth’s first sterile seas? The choice may depend on us, this century.
Martin Rees