Space pioneer Elon Musk said on a podcast today with Kara Swisher that becoming a multi-planet species is fundamentally important to ensuring the long-term survival of life as we know it:
Being A Multi-Planet Species Is Important To Our Survival
We are able to lower the cost of access to space so we are certainly saving taxpayers a lot of money. We’re advancing the technology of launch by having reusable rockets. Reusability is very important for improving access to space. It’s really just kind of insane to have a rocket be expendable. You build this incredibly exquisite machine and then it comes down and smashes in the ocean. Then there is like debris at the bottom of the ocean. This is crazy.
Ultimately, you want many companies competing (in space) to serve the greater good or serve the customer essentially. You want multiple companies to advance the future of space flight so that we can ultimately become a multi-planet species and a spacefaring civilization. This is fundamentally important to ensuring the long-term survival of life as we know it. We must become a multi-planet species.
I am not trying to be doom and gloom here but the fossil record does show that there have been many extinction events over the millenia. These are from meteors, super volcanoes, and just from natural planet variation. It does become very severe but at a pace that would seem slow to us. Then eventually the sun is going to expand and engulf and incinerate Earth. This is for sure going to happen but not anytime soon.
It’s Sad That In 2020 We Can’t Even Go Back To The Moon
Several years ago I had some private dinners with Jeff Bezos talking about space. He has a similar view that we need to be a spacefaring civilization and multi-planet species. I have some minor disagreements with him. I don’t think that we want to be living on a space station. I think we want to be living on a planet. But whatever, if you have advanced rockets you can decide whether you want to live on a space station or live on Mars.
Right now, we have a long way to go because we can’t even get back to the Moon. I think it is sad that we were able to go to the Moon in 1969 and here we are in 2020 and can’t even go back to the Moon. We definitely want to make sure that civilization is improving over time.