The final reality is we need space exploration type research...lets hope the debate when it manifests in budget planing etc is only where the money is spent not do we need to spend any money at all.
I know I am crazy to suggest we build battle stars but really if we are to survive long term
..really long term
as a species that or a similar approach would seem inevitable ... where would we go if planet "x" drops out of its unobservable possition behind the Sun and was on a collision course
...extreme examples but we are the first species to be able to possibly analyse events that in the past has been responsible presumably for mass extintions.
We need to learnt to drive to be able to escape.
I think the debate could be subtly changed to how many humans per year should we be sending on space missions in proportion to unmanned craft...
The need for battle stars should be presented in the same manner as the horrors of climate change...mmm...even that ending means we need to be able to leave
...happily folk trying to get hotels on the Moon and offer space flights to the average billionaire offer real hope. I remember a mobphone costing $5000 and look how those prices became throwaway...
Anyways part of the carbon tax needs to be set aside for the ultimate Ark
...
Now there is a happy exercise...designing the ultimate Ark...by the time it is finished there would be maybe 30 billion humans to transport...maybe that T..lsd.>Leary was on the money...hollow out a convienient pile of rock out there and at least we could wait out the planet x collision
.
I bet there is a site out there somewhere where there are folk doing that as I type...the net has taught me that.
alex