An informal review of space exploration

Abstract

Crewed space exploration in the short and medium run, short of large self-sustaining colonies, would not appreciably reduce existential risk. Interplanetary colonization has little prospect of reducing our existential risk. It might reduce plague risk and black ball risk, but these are highly uncertain ideas. Learning how to colonize the Solar System might provide some techniques to help us survive on Earth, but this is dubious. It does seem to be the case that growing our population and economy into large self-sustaining colonies in the Solar System is potentially less dangerous than growing our population and economy based wholly on Earth, assuming equal amounts of growth. So while colonization is not a good strategy for reducing risk, it may be considered prudent to grow humanity in space rather than concentrating too much urbanization, business and technology on Earth. Meanwhile, interstellar travel would more robustly reduce existential risk from all sources.