One of the reasons to establish off-world colonies is to allow persistence of the species in the event of a catastrophy making the Earth unlivable. Given the hi

One of the reasons to establish off-world colonies is to allow persistence of the species in the event of a catastrophy making the Earth unlivable. Given the history of extinction events found in archaeology this isn't an entirely unreasonable thing to plan for. In that frame, a colony that can't survive (or has a reduced chance of survival) is of lower utility than one that can be effectively independent.