The massive amounts of resources in space are, of course, a plus... but I mostly like it for the long-term survival of the human race. Setting up self-sustaini

The massive amounts of resources in space are, of course, a plus... but I mostly like it for the long-term survival of the human race. Setting up self-sustaining human presences in colonies on other planets/moons makes it vastly less likely that some random asteroid that we didn't see coming will wipe us all out. (Other potential disaster scenarios involve superviruses, grey goo, that giant volcano under Yellowstone, and so forth.)