The unstated major premise of a statement like "we need to start thinking about..." is that we aren't already thinking about it. But I don't think that premise

The unstated major premise of a statement like "we need to start thinking about..." is that we aren't already thinking about it. But I don't think that premise holds in this case. See, for example, DTN, which is already being used to do real work on the ISS. There are also plans use it elsewhere, including in some future lunar missions. https://www.nasa.gov/communicating-with-missions/delay-disruption-tolerant-networking/ https://www.nasa.gov/communicating-with-missions/delay-disru...