>>13092303>The nearest planet is 4 light years away and there is a 99% chance it is a lifeless rock. Musk's crap has local application at best. It's a tremendous effort to get to Mars alone, it will never be worth it to go to CentauriI agree for the most part. But consider this, if you agree with the general assumptions,
The Earth is fucked. Humans are stupid aand like locusts.
Globally there is no escape. Its no good thinking humans will be able to live comfortably in the Alaskan wilderness or some hobbit town in New Zealand. Eventually over population and consumer waste is going to turn the entire planet into a polluted hellhole, at best, or uninhabitable at worse. How long this will take and what will be the primary cause remains to be seen. It could take centuries, or maybe less. It could be micro-plastics, food chain collapse, war, disease, climate change, or a dozen other things working in combination or alone. Will human continue to survive, probably, but the quality of life will be very low. For the extremely rich protecting their status will become increasingly problematic, and other than living in a hermetically sealed enclave, protecting themselves against environmental pollution is impossible.
So it stands to reason that some will place their bets on the remote chance that colonization on a earth-like exo-planet is worth the investment, even if its only their descendants who will benefit.