>I just wonder if humanity’s adventurous nature is leading us away from a proper focus on the sustainability of our civilization, our specie, and our fragile planetary environment?
But we still need spaceflight at least for planetary defense against asteroids, mining asteroids(so we don't have to mine Earth), etc.
I suggest re-framing the the question as the cost of preserving the objectively limited and to the best of our knowledge singularly unique in the Universe resource, which is the surface of Earth.
Acquiring resources that do not deplete or spoil the future of life on this planet should be in everyone's best interest.
The reality is that saving our environment will be a whole set of difficult and profoundly boring solutions to real, known problems.
Would be cool if we could solve it with badass rockets, explosions, big noises, and adventure, but the complete lack of even remotely convincing answers to first order questions on how this actually works belies the fact that it doesn’t. It makes no sense.
We need to develop better plastics, proteins, and pesticides. Not send protein blobs to other planets because it looks cool in sci fi movies.
The reality is more people get passsionate about working on things that look cool in sci fi movies than developing plastics, proteins and pesticides for a mediocre paycheque. This lesson--that the path to groundbreaking technologies is through inspirational moonshots, not committees prescribing what is and isn't necessary--is so thoroughly repeated throughout history that it's a wonder we keep missing it.
Groundbreaking technologies are not created via moonshots. They’re created by decades of slog. Moonshots can launch from an unremarkable platform of slog, but the slog had to happen. You just cannot speedrun the vast majority of questions that need to be answered to power a breakthrough.
That’s why I’ll question glory-chasers who want to sit on the rocket but can’t take a few thousands of pay cut to stare for a few years at a true problem that needs solving.
Our species’ actual heroes are those who powered through the slog.
The slog is almost always in pursuit of a moonshot. The moon justifies the slog. We don’t slog for the sake of it.