The Case for Mars

Ongoing survival of human consciousness on earth is not guaranteed. Therefore, mankind must be proactive to ensure the survival of human consciousness by occupying, permanently, other planetary bodies, including moons, asteroids etc.

The earth, the solar system, and the universe... all are in a state of flux.

Earth, specifically, is at risk of life extinction level disturbance in the short term, at least as expressed in geologic time. There have been five mass extinctions on earth in the last 500 million years. Earth extinctions have been caused by a combination of factors, including climate change, volcanic activity and asteroid impacts. The Siberian volcanic cataclysm which occurred about 252 million years ago was the proximate cause of the Permian-Triassic mass extinction. The Siberian volcanic eruptions released large amounts of CO2 and methane into the atmosphere leading to the extinction of more than 90% of marine species and 75% of terrestrial species.

Most are familiar with the Chicxulub comet impact in the Yucatan Peninsula which occurred 66 million years ago. This catastrophic event led to the mass extinction of 75% of plant and animal species on earth.

If another Yucatan comet level cataclysm seems remote, a future volcanic cataclysm is certain.

Africa's Grand Rift Valley widens by seven millimeters a year. This progressive separation will result in the eventual splitting apart of the African continent, and like the Siberian cataclysm, will result in at least a thousand years of life-destroying atmospheric disturbance. When? Tomorrow or in100K years.

The Yellowstone Caldera last blew 70K years ago and before that, 660K years ago. It will blow again... tomorrow... or in 100K years. These blows are fairly recent in the context of geologic time. A Yellowstone Caldera eruption may not result in a mass extinction, but it would mark a considerable setback for human progress.

Use of atomic weaponry, mass kinetic warfare, plague, or birth shut down, all plausible, if not (yet) probable, could lead to the extinction of mankind.

There is no evidence over the 4.6 billion years of earth's existence of encounter with any other form of life in the universe. Distances to planets where life may exist - planets in a star's habitable zone - are so far away that, even with light speed technology harnessed, we will never be able to travel to them. Accordingly, we live with the effective notion that 'we are it.' This is known as the Fermi Paradox. The Fermi Paradox highlights the contradiction between the seeming high probability of extraterrestrial life and the lack of evidence for, or contact with, such civilizations.

Ergo. If human consciousness has some value, mankind, with no evidence that it shares the universe with other life, has an obligation to preserve itself... to advance itself... and this means, hedging bets of survival by seeding itself, in a survival exigency, off of the earth. Elon Musk's Mars quest is a first tenable step to doing this... and a necessary step given the inevitability of mankind's ultimate destruction if it limits itself to living only on earth.