The Approach of Space Colonization

Though prohibitively expensive and expansively nebulous at this point in time, space colonization stands as the strongest guarantee to continued human survival and prosperity going into the distant future. Despite the threat of large corporate and governmental bodies mainly benefitting from such endeavors and the dangers of establishing sustainability and avoiding biological contamination, creating a foothold for human society to expand without relying on Earth is perhaps the most important step for human society to grow continuing into and going beyond the 21st century.

Many people will have a hard time wrapping their heads around space colonization in practical terms. It's easy enough to imagine what a space colony might look like, but the practical steps to get there are far more complex and would require infinitely more effort to put into action. As such, many, governments and large corporations most importantly, have been dissuaded from trying to establish steps towards building extraterrestrial colonies.

The thing there though is that this is not necessarily a bad thing.

While some such as Stephen Hawking have urged that we as a society push towards space colonization as if our survival depended on it, it is more sensible to approach the issue practically and with patience. Humanity's biggest threat is itself. The chance of a potentially cosmic threat wiping the species out is relatively low, even looking at a time frame of millions of years. If we can begin to work to settle issues that would lead to extinction now, we would be in much better shape to work out the issues of space colonization.

This calls to mind the Fermi Paradoxー given that no alien species has even been observed, so much as managed to expand beyond its planet and provide some sign that they were out there, there is apparently very little chance that human beings would have the means to expand either. That being said, it stands to reason that this paradox merely means that other species have collapsed under their own strain before expanding into space, unable to adapt and killing each other off before managing to get to a point of cosmic expansion.

If we can deal with more pertinent issues that plague us today (such as climate change and disease, which we may have shown ourselves unable to deal with given recent events), that is just as valuable as working out issues regarding space colonization. It is best that we create a society that can comfortably live and cooperate on Earth before looking to expand outwards, as those colonies would need to carry our baggage as well.

Assuming that humanity can deal with its issues on Earth, even a time frame of 10,000 years from today would be more than generous for establishing self-sustaining space colonies, that being a time frame that is not even a blink in the eye of the universe. If we can begin to address some of the more practical issues that plague global society today, I have high hopes for the species going into the future.