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This is frankly a blatantly wrong and quite foolish argument. Space exploration has already created many significant benefits for humanity on Earth, by advancin

This is frankly a blatantly wrong and quite foolish argument. Space exploration has already created many significant benefits for humanity on Earth, by advancing hundreds of new technologies with terrestrial applications and launching satellite networks that support a safer, more peaceful world for humans, with improved agricultural efficiencies as well as advanced warning and a better understanding of extreme weather events and climate trends. Also, spending on space continues to be and has been a very small expense, not only smaller than cosmetics, but entirely dwarfed by military spending and welfare, both of which are highly contested as to whether they provide net benefit at all to the people of Earth. You'd have to be ideologically possessed or completely ignorant of reality to believe this anti-space bs. > American citizens need to decide what they prioritize. Is it space exploration or is it a decent standard of living at home? Is it the moon, Mars, or Earth? No they don't. We can prioritize both, and frankly, life on Earth will be better the more we priotitize space exploration, not worse.

ButWhatFor 6y ago
Came here to say this - this has been the difficulty with things like science and research since the dawn of time... you study one thing and then hopefully if you have a lot of people studying multiple things one hugely amazing thing eventually falls out when one person gets lucky. It leads to a very delayed gratification despite very real near term costs. So it’s easy to attack the costs and focus and prioritization... But if you don’t invest in science as a whole, eventually you start running out of new things that improve life generally. Space exploration is one of those areas where we learn and continuously bring back learnings to the rest of society.
- jschwartzi 6y ago
  It's also a tool to pacify people with empty promises of a better future. The way that it's being used as a distant future utopia is like the way promises of Heaven are used in Abrahamic religions to convince people to suffer in the here and now. A lot of people would choose to suffer some now in order to go to some peaceful space colony where they don't have to live with any of the consequences for our biosphere. They'll just get to go live in a different one. The reality is that if we continue to ignore the very real problems on our planet we won't ever see the day that we're living on other planets. It doesn't matter that there are real, quantifiable benefits to space exploration. Most people who believe it's important don't know anything about those benefits, and they don't think it's important because of that. It's all about the promise of a "heaven" in the sky in which they won't have to struggle anymore.
  - zxcmx 6y ago
    We could "spin" the anti-space side as a religion too I suppose. It involves a bit more ascetism and self-flagellation though. I already live in a "heavenly" future compared to most of my ancestors. I have hot and cold running water. My waste is whisked away. I can travel far and harness powerful energies with the flick of a switch. I can summon almost any food or item imaginable to my doorstep. I can open a portal to anywhere and speak with people there. There are still mysteries however, and the human body is rich with them. There is a growing sense that using our powers comes at a terrible cost. Many feel that the only solution is to abstain, although some factions believe that we can "purify" our technology. Because the problem, filtered through the human psyche, is seen as a moral one. That it's _wrong_ for so many things to be too easy. Ten dollars shoes, drive-thru fast food and plastic bags must be evil because anyone can see it's absurd that these things are even possible. Naturally, developing new powers (such as space exploration) would come with more terrible costs, and this must be stopped until we address our sins here on earth.
    - FlyMoreRockets 6y ago
      > We could "spin" the anti-space side as a religion too I suppose. It involves a bit more ascetism and self-flagellation though. And a heavy dose of fatalism.
    - onecommentman 6y ago
      Let’s address this theology you’ve just created that you propose/project others believe. It would be more persuasive if you presented an “anti-space” (?) actually expressing this argument. Otherwise it could just be a fantasy you’ve concocted in your head... A counter argument to your theology: I personally know of no one who has proposed banning space exploration. Banning space travel would follow your created theology, since banning is what morality normally does. A more widely held theology might be that “anti-space” believes that human space exploration is a cowardly, and not a heroic, endeavor. One person’s exploration is another person’s escape. That is off-message for selling space tourism and tchotchkes, so there could be some pushback from those with “skin in the game”. And it shows some unintended disrespect for those who gave their lives during early space missions. PS: In fact, I know of nobody who, now and then, hasn’t wanted more human space travel. They just want to choose who gets sent and whether they are permitted to come back alive. Two birds, one stone...
Justsignedup 6y ago
I think it is important to understand differences: The future of humanity is not only on earth. Too much risk, too limited resources. HOWEVER the future of humanity in space is NOT "tomorrow we lift off a giant spaceship with everyone on it." If we survive a few hundred years we might see some amount of human civilization outside of earth, but for many hundreds of years after more practical space tech comes about most of humanity will still be born, live, and die on earth. Maybe in a thousand years we'll see more humans outside of earth than on earth. But that's a long long long ways from now. If we are to become an "immortal" race (doesn't go extinct) then I can see the human race abandoning earth in a hundred thousand years or so due to many possible conditions. But even if we can colonize and terraform other planets, why would we want to when we already have a perfectly terraformed planet we're already on. Life has survived on earth farily well for billions of years, there's no reason why if we don't completely obliterate the climate we can't survive here till the sun blows up.
- macspoofing 6y ago
  >The future of humanity is not only on earth. Where are you going to go? Outside of Earth, there is no place for us in the entire Solar System. Sure we may build some research stations here and there, just as we did in inhospitable places on Earth (like Antarctica), but there's no long-term option anywhere. Interstellar travel is science fiction, but even if it wasn't, there is no place for us to go as well.
  - travisoneill1 6y ago
    You make the place. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O%27Neill_cylinder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O%27Neill_cylinder Obviously this is far beyond our current level of technology, though.
    - RobertoG 6y ago
      It's absolutely not beyond our current level of technology. Unfortunately, there are not economic incentives yet. Now, this(1) it's beyond our current level, but one can dream. It's obvious to me that this is the most probable future and I would not be surprise if, at some point, most humanity is living in this kind of environment instead of planets. Planets have a lot of disadvantages. (1) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bishop_Ring_(habitat) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bishop_Ring_(habitat)
Animats 6y ago
Space exploration has already created many significant benefits for humanity on Earth, by advancing hundreds of new technologies with terrestrial applications Velcro! Tang! Teflon! Computers! NASA PR used to make a big thing of that. But those things didn't come from NASA's space program. The ISS was a huge disappointment. It's the best argument for not putting people in space. Hugely expensive, and not very useful.
- bserge 6y ago
  That's like sailing on the ocean to the point where you can't see land and calling it the best argument for not exploring any further...
- FlyMoreRockets 6y ago
  Literally every new car sold today uses plasma coatings to extend the lifetime of the rotating assembly and efficiency of the combustion facing components. Every commercial airliner turbine uses this technology, not to mention GPS, communication and weather satellites... https://spinoff.nasa.gov/spinoff2000/ip9.htm https://spinoff.nasa.gov/spinoff2000/ip9.htm https://spinoff.nasa.gov https://spinoff.nasa.gov Yeah, that was another NASA spi
  - dingaling 6y ago
    Plasma coat spraying predates the space era, though it was rapidly refined in the 1950s for aerospace use.
snarf21 6y ago
I agree we need both. I still think it is many many magnitudes harder for us to get to Mars or build a sustained presence on the Moon than to solve some of the energy or other problems we have on Earth. We have almost endless resources here but (largely) politically we aren't interested in solving them. I'm all for exploration and learning. The question is about the goal. Is our goal to learn about the Moon and our solar system or to have a significant human settlement (not involved in research) on the Moon? I'm pro-space and pro-exploration but not pro "we've killed the Earth but we'll do better on Mars".
m463 6y ago
> This is frankly a blatantly wrong and quite foolish argument. I like to remember that these types of flawed arguments are the best at getting viewership up and ads viewed.
jp555 6y ago
Absolutely. Learning to live in the constraints of space help up learn to do everything with less on Earth.
bmitc 6y ago
> Space exploration has already created many significant benefits for humanity on Earth, by advancing hundreds of new technologies with terrestrial applications and launching satellite networks I don't think this is a strong supporting argument because it applies to any major technological development. Anytime you invest people, billions of dollars, etc. into major technological goals, you're going to get advances and spinoffs that have broader applications. Space exploration is already basically a spinoff of military projects, goals, and investing, just like a huge amount of existing and future technology. > that support a safer, more peaceful world for humans, with improved agricultural efficiencies as well as advanced warning and a better understanding of extreme weather events and climate trends A citation would be very helpful there in terms of creating a more peaceful world for humans, as I do not think it's so cut and dry. Further, one could argue that exploring the oceans instead of space would be far more beneficial to understanding life, climate, ecosystems, etc. and would have just as much if not more technological spinoffs as sending man to the Moon or Mars. My personal viewpoint on space exploration is to currently concentrate on drones and robots being sent out to space and to turn the money that would otherwise be invested into manned missions towards understanding the ocean and Earth itself. It's difficult to imagine a more perfect place for sustainable life than Earth, and yet we are not sustaining. That is a big gap and a big goal for humans: sustain life on Earth in a healthy way. If we can't do that on Earth, then I truly do not understand how we'll do it anywhere else.
- autokad 6y ago
  life on earth or human life? because life is just fine. All we are doing is restoring the atmosphere changed by a devastating asteroid impact. An atmosphere that plunges the earth into ice for 10s if not 100s of thousands of years periodically. If we kept pumping out CO2 at present acceleration, it would take us 500 years to reach the levels preimpact. We wont get there, we will likely run out or find other alternatives, but that time frame puts things into perspective.
kulig 6y ago
Bro, dont know if you noticed but our species has pretty much destroyed the planet.
marta_morena_28 6y ago
> We can prioritize both, and frankly, life on Earth will be better the more we priotitize space exploration, not worse. This is a pretty baseless claim. Space exploration, within the next 50 years, will yield utterly nothing for humans on earth. We want to colonize Mars or the Moon? Great, but what for? You know how much all these things cost? Trillions per large economy. With that money you can do quite a lot to increase our life here on earth. What we need right now is not space exploration, we need tech to combat climate change and to combat the general destruction of ecosystems on this planet. Like it or not. The earth is not an eternal resting place for humans, but we are not going to leave it anytime soon either. So for the next 100 years we need to keep this thing going at the very least. 100 years, at the current levels of destruction (which is as it looks like only going to increase) is going to be tough. Space is not where to look, we don't have the tech to colonize space and we are not gonna get it fast enough to just abandon earth right now.
- powerapple 6y ago
  I like Jeff Bezos' idea very much. Earth is so nice, but we are facing climate change, energy problem and pollutions. Why not shift factories, mine energy and other resources from other planet, and we can live on earth without damaging it too quickly. It sounds a lot better than moving people to other planets.
- mr_toad 6y ago
  > What we need Who’s we? Global collective decision making seems to be less likely to happen in the next century than having people on Mars.
ordu 6y ago
> We can prioritize both, and frankly, life on Earth will be better the more we priotitize space exploration, not worse. Why not to start to invest into research and technologies allowing us to terraform planets? We have a climate catastrophe in a near future, why no to try something to do. Like to grow forest over Sahara, I mean no just Egypt trying to do it in a small scale, but as a multinational project, with tons of invested resources? It could allow to try technologies, to learn economics of such projects, to check climate models and so on. Or maybe there are better ideas than turning Sahara into a rain forest? What they are? Should we try them maybe?
hcarvalhoalves 6y ago
> You'd have to be ideologically possessed or completely ignorant of reality to believe this anti-space bs. I don’t think asking a government to get it’s priorities straight is “anti-space bs”. I’m not from the US, but I too would be mad if I saw the gov talk about man in the Moon/Mars while I don’t have healthcare and the country is on fire.
- johnmorrison 6y ago
  A sufficiently large country is always on fire, somewhere :p
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
cma 6y ago
> provide net benefit at all to the people of Earth. Are you saying there might be an overall net benefit, but not a net benefit to everyone individually? I'm fine with extra support for the disabled even if everyone else doesn't necessarily get an individual net benefit from it. Everything doesn't need to be pareto optimal, it is just a no brainier when it is.
PrinceKropotkin 6y ago
I'm a big fan of space exploration, but it's very difficult to argue that it's going to be a net positive until we can actually colonize mars. That could still be hundreds of years off. Furthermore, the idea that spending on the "space force" or whatever is going to enrich the public domain is beyond naive. NASA is functionally dead.
heresie-dabord 6y ago
> You'd have to be ideologically possessed or completely ignorant of reality to believe this anti-space bs. I think you have just offered a good reason why homo sapiens is a threat to other worlds. (o:
orenweisfeld 6y ago
Hi John, Thanks for your comment. I tried to specify that I was talking about space exploration for the purposes of finding life/inhabiting planets. This is the thing I dont think we should be spending resources on.
- johnmorrison 6y ago
  Hey Oren, I appreciate your civil clarification, however, I still honestly don't see a reasonable path to your view. If we find extraterrestrial life, this poses perhaps the greatest opportunity we've ever had to learn more about the limits and fundamentals of life on Earth, as we will finally have a sample size of more than one rise of life in multiple environments. If we learn to inhabit other planets or moons, this requires perhaps the greatest project in engineering across many specializations ever attempted, constraining us to stricter boundaries than we face on Earth, and thereby inevitably teaching us a lot more about improving life on Earth. If you can play football against the pros, you can definitely play it against amateurs. Training in the NFL doesn't take away from your ability to play at home, it improves it.

ButWhatFor 6y ago

Came here to say this - this has been the difficulty with things like science and research since the dawn of time... you study one thing and then hopefully if you have a lot of people studying multiple things one hugely amazing thing eventually falls out when one person gets lucky. It leads to a very delayed gratification despite very real near term costs. So it’s easy to attack the costs and focus and prioritization... But if you don’t invest in science as a whole, eventually you start running out of new things that improve life generally. Space exploration is one of those areas where we learn and continuously bring back learnings to the rest of society.

jschwartzi 6y ago
It's also a tool to pacify people with empty promises of a better future. The way that it's being used as a distant future utopia is like the way promises of Heaven are used in Abrahamic religions to convince people to suffer in the here and now. A lot of people would choose to suffer some now in order to go to some peaceful space colony where they don't have to live with any of the consequences for our biosphere. They'll just get to go live in a different one. The reality is that if we continue to ignore the very real problems on our planet we won't ever see the day that we're living on other planets. It doesn't matter that there are real, quantifiable benefits to space exploration. Most people who believe it's important don't know anything about those benefits, and they don't think it's important because of that. It's all about the promise of a "heaven" in the sky in which they won't have to struggle anymore.
- zxcmx 6y ago
  We could "spin" the anti-space side as a religion too I suppose. It involves a bit more ascetism and self-flagellation though. I already live in a "heavenly" future compared to most of my ancestors. I have hot and cold running water. My waste is whisked away. I can travel far and harness powerful energies with the flick of a switch. I can summon almost any food or item imaginable to my doorstep. I can open a portal to anywhere and speak with people there. There are still mysteries however, and the human body is rich with them. There is a growing sense that using our powers comes at a terrible cost. Many feel that the only solution is to abstain, although some factions believe that we can "purify" our technology. Because the problem, filtered through the human psyche, is seen as a moral one. That it's _wrong_ for so many things to be too easy. Ten dollars shoes, drive-thru fast food and plastic bags must be evil because anyone can see it's absurd that these things are even possible. Naturally, developing new powers (such as space exploration) would come with more terrible costs, and this must be stopped until we address our sins here on earth.
  - FlyMoreRockets 6y ago
    > We could "spin" the anti-space side as a religion too I suppose. It involves a bit more ascetism and self-flagellation though. And a heavy dose of fatalism.
  - onecommentman 6y ago
    Let’s address this theology you’ve just created that you propose/project others believe. It would be more persuasive if you presented an “anti-space” (?) actually expressing this argument. Otherwise it could just be a fantasy you’ve concocted in your head... A counter argument to your theology: I personally know of no one who has proposed banning space exploration. Banning space travel would follow your created theology, since banning is what morality normally does. A more widely held theology might be that “anti-space” believes that human space exploration is a cowardly, and not a heroic, endeavor. One person’s exploration is another person’s escape. That is off-message for selling space tourism and tchotchkes, so there could be some pushback from those with “skin in the game”. And it shows some unintended disrespect for those who gave their lives during early space missions. PS: In fact, I know of nobody who, now and then, hasn’t wanted more human space travel. They just want to choose who gets sent and whether they are permitted to come back alive. Two birds, one stone...

Justsignedup 6y ago

I think it is important to understand differences: The future of humanity is not only on earth. Too much risk, too limited resources. HOWEVER the future of humanity in space is NOT "tomorrow we lift off a giant spaceship with everyone on it." If we survive a few hundred years we might see some amount of human civilization outside of earth, but for many hundreds of years after more practical space tech comes about most of humanity will still be born, live, and die on earth. Maybe in a thousand years we'll see more humans outside of earth than on earth. But that's a long long long ways from now. If we are to become an "immortal" race (doesn't go extinct) then I can see the human race abandoning earth in a hundred thousand years or so due to many possible conditions. But even if we can colonize and terraform other planets, why would we want to when we already have a perfectly terraformed planet we're already on. Life has survived on earth farily well for billions of years, there's no reason why if we don't completely obliterate the climate we can't survive here till the sun blows up.

macspoofing 6y ago
>The future of humanity is not only on earth. Where are you going to go? Outside of Earth, there is no place for us in the entire Solar System. Sure we may build some research stations here and there, just as we did in inhospitable places on Earth (like Antarctica), but there's no long-term option anywhere. Interstellar travel is science fiction, but even if it wasn't, there is no place for us to go as well.
- travisoneill1 6y ago
  You make the place. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O%27Neill_cylinder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/O%27Neill_cylinder Obviously this is far beyond our current level of technology, though.
  - RobertoG 6y ago
    It's absolutely not beyond our current level of technology. Unfortunately, there are not economic incentives yet. Now, this(1) it's beyond our current level, but one can dream. It's obvious to me that this is the most probable future and I would not be surprise if, at some point, most humanity is living in this kind of environment instead of planets. Planets have a lot of disadvantages. (1) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bishop_Ring_(habitat) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bishop_Ring_(habitat)

Animats 6y ago

Space exploration has already created many significant benefits for humanity on Earth, by advancing hundreds of new technologies with terrestrial applications Velcro! Tang! Teflon! Computers! NASA PR used to make a big thing of that. But those things didn't come from NASA's space program. The ISS was a huge disappointment. It's the best argument for not putting people in space. Hugely expensive, and not very useful.

bserge 6y ago
That's like sailing on the ocean to the point where you can't see land and calling it the best argument for not exploring any further...
FlyMoreRockets 6y ago
Literally every new car sold today uses plasma coatings to extend the lifetime of the rotating assembly and efficiency of the combustion facing components. Every commercial airliner turbine uses this technology, not to mention GPS, communication and weather satellites... https://spinoff.nasa.gov/spinoff2000/ip9.htm https://spinoff.nasa.gov/spinoff2000/ip9.htm https://spinoff.nasa.gov https://spinoff.nasa.gov Yeah, that was another NASA spi
- dingaling 6y ago
  Plasma coat spraying predates the space era, though it was rapidly refined in the 1950s for aerospace use.

snarf21 6y ago

I agree we need both. I still think it is many many magnitudes harder for us to get to Mars or build a sustained presence on the Moon than to solve some of the energy or other problems we have on Earth. We have almost endless resources here but (largely) politically we aren't interested in solving them. I'm all for exploration and learning. The question is about the goal. Is our goal to learn about the Moon and our solar system or to have a significant human settlement (not involved in research) on the Moon? I'm pro-space and pro-exploration but not pro "we've killed the Earth but we'll do better on Mars".

m463 6y ago

> This is frankly a blatantly wrong and quite foolish argument. I like to remember that these types of flawed arguments are the best at getting viewership up and ads viewed.

jp555 6y ago

Absolutely. Learning to live in the constraints of space help up learn to do everything with less on Earth.

bmitc 6y ago

> Space exploration has already created many significant benefits for humanity on Earth, by advancing hundreds of new technologies with terrestrial applications and launching satellite networks I don't think this is a strong supporting argument because it applies to any major technological development. Anytime you invest people, billions of dollars, etc. into major technological goals, you're going to get advances and spinoffs that have broader applications. Space exploration is already basically a spinoff of military projects, goals, and investing, just like a huge amount of existing and future technology. > that support a safer, more peaceful world for humans, with improved agricultural efficiencies as well as advanced warning and a better understanding of extreme weather events and climate trends A citation would be very helpful there in terms of creating a more peaceful world for humans, as I do not think it's so cut and dry. Further, one could argue that exploring the oceans instead of space would be far more beneficial to understanding life, climate, ecosystems, etc. and would have just as much if not more technological spinoffs as sending man to the Moon or Mars. My personal viewpoint on space exploration is to currently concentrate on drones and robots being sent out to space and to turn the money that would otherwise be invested into manned missions towards understanding the ocean and Earth itself. It's difficult to imagine a more perfect place for sustainable life than Earth, and yet we are not sustaining. That is a big gap and a big goal for humans: sustain life on Earth in a healthy way. If we can't do that on Earth, then I truly do not understand how we'll do it anywhere else.

autokad 6y ago
life on earth or human life? because life is just fine. All we are doing is restoring the atmosphere changed by a devastating asteroid impact. An atmosphere that plunges the earth into ice for 10s if not 100s of thousands of years periodically. If we kept pumping out CO2 at present acceleration, it would take us 500 years to reach the levels preimpact. We wont get there, we will likely run out or find other alternatives, but that time frame puts things into perspective.

kulig 6y ago

Bro, dont know if you noticed but our species has pretty much destroyed the planet.

marta_morena_28 6y ago

> We can prioritize both, and frankly, life on Earth will be better the more we priotitize space exploration, not worse. This is a pretty baseless claim. Space exploration, within the next 50 years, will yield utterly nothing for humans on earth. We want to colonize Mars or the Moon? Great, but what for? You know how much all these things cost? Trillions per large economy. With that money you can do quite a lot to increase our life here on earth. What we need right now is not space exploration, we need tech to combat climate change and to combat the general destruction of ecosystems on this planet. Like it or not. The earth is not an eternal resting place for humans, but we are not going to leave it anytime soon either. So for the next 100 years we need to keep this thing going at the very least. 100 years, at the current levels of destruction (which is as it looks like only going to increase) is going to be tough. Space is not where to look, we don't have the tech to colonize space and we are not gonna get it fast enough to just abandon earth right now.

powerapple 6y ago
I like Jeff Bezos' idea very much. Earth is so nice, but we are facing climate change, energy problem and pollutions. Why not shift factories, mine energy and other resources from other planet, and we can live on earth without damaging it too quickly. It sounds a lot better than moving people to other planets.
mr_toad 6y ago
> What we need Who’s we? Global collective decision making seems to be less likely to happen in the next century than having people on Mars.

ordu 6y ago

> We can prioritize both, and frankly, life on Earth will be better the more we priotitize space exploration, not worse. Why not to start to invest into research and technologies allowing us to terraform planets? We have a climate catastrophe in a near future, why no to try something to do. Like to grow forest over Sahara, I mean no just Egypt trying to do it in a small scale, but as a multinational project, with tons of invested resources? It could allow to try technologies, to learn economics of such projects, to check climate models and so on. Or maybe there are better ideas than turning Sahara into a rain forest? What they are? Should we try them maybe?

hcarvalhoalves 6y ago

> You'd have to be ideologically possessed or completely ignorant of reality to believe this anti-space bs. I don’t think asking a government to get it’s priorities straight is “anti-space bs”. I’m not from the US, but I too would be mad if I saw the gov talk about man in the Moon/Mars while I don’t have healthcare and the country is on fire.

johnmorrison 6y ago
A sufficiently large country is always on fire, somewhere :p

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

cma 6y ago

> provide net benefit at all to the people of Earth. Are you saying there might be an overall net benefit, but not a net benefit to everyone individually? I'm fine with extra support for the disabled even if everyone else doesn't necessarily get an individual net benefit from it. Everything doesn't need to be pareto optimal, it is just a no brainier when it is.

PrinceKropotkin 6y ago

I'm a big fan of space exploration, but it's very difficult to argue that it's going to be a net positive until we can actually colonize mars. That could still be hundreds of years off. Furthermore, the idea that spending on the "space force" or whatever is going to enrich the public domain is beyond naive. NASA is functionally dead.

heresie-dabord 6y ago

> You'd have to be ideologically possessed or completely ignorant of reality to believe this anti-space bs. I think you have just offered a good reason why homo sapiens is a threat to other worlds. (o:

orenweisfeld 6y ago

Hi John, Thanks for your comment. I tried to specify that I was talking about space exploration for the purposes of finding life/inhabiting planets. This is the thing I dont think we should be spending resources on.

johnmorrison 6y ago
Hey Oren, I appreciate your civil clarification, however, I still honestly don't see a reasonable path to your view. If we find extraterrestrial life, this poses perhaps the greatest opportunity we've ever had to learn more about the limits and fundamentals of life on Earth, as we will finally have a sample size of more than one rise of life in multiple environments. If we learn to inhabit other planets or moons, this requires perhaps the greatest project in engineering across many specializations ever attempted, constraining us to stricter boundaries than we face on Earth, and thereby inevitably teaching us a lot more about improving life on Earth. If you can play football against the pros, you can definitely play it against amateurs. Training in the NFL doesn't take away from your ability to play at home, it improves it.