I think I may have mentioned at some point that we are all going to die. Every last one of us.
No, it’s true. As long as we all remain confined to one small planet the chances of an event that wipes us all out are pretty good. I didn’t know how good until I came across this on Slashdot. 1 in 455. Pretty bleak, eh? And you know what? It doesn’t have to be something that wipes out all life, or even most life. It just has to destroy civilization, which would be rather easier, to my figuring. Once civilization is dead, it becomes a far easier thing to imagine all this just disappearing.
It’s simple: Once we have a sustainable colony on the moon we can start to breathe a little easier about extinction events that involve the Earth. Once we have a colony on Mars, we don’t need to worry about anything that would cause the Earth-Moon system to become uninhabitable (though if we can build a sustainable community on the Moon, we can pretty much live anywhere). Once we branch out past Mars, we’re down to events that involve destruction of the Sun.
Next, the stars.
John Young has this and this to say on the subject.
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