I think the author is articulating (perhaps not as clearly as they could) a simple concern that many feel. We had on this planet a one time gift of crazy amounts of resources in terms of things like fossil fuels, but also things like high percentage metal ores that could be extracted at low energy costs. At some point humanity must become a multi planetary species or be doomed to extinction. The best time to go this would be when we had the resources to do so and the complex societal structures necessary to undertake this highly complicated and resource intensive endeavor.<p>However we are running - increasingly rapidly - into significant barriers of resource depletion. This is compounded by the fact that resource depletion itself can interfere with the capacity if society to solve big challenges.<p>Therefore if we don't get focused on getting a sustainable space presence now we may find we never do, having squandered our one time bounty of resources and society having peaked on its ability to deliver on grand programs.<p>It is an argument I have a lot of sympathy with. There are utopians out there who mistake technology for energy and believe smarts will necessarily overcome the coming energy crunch and its allied problems of resource depletion and overpopulation, as well as the relevant but slightly tangential issue if global climate change. I am not convinced.
Looking at it through the economic lens that the author does, I think what he fails to recognize is the payoffs. War has immediate and substantial payoffs. Whether that is material gain, new energy or food sources, pillage, prestige, etc., or moral gain, in the destruction of a regime that commits heinous acts, war has benefits which can be easily seen in the short term, and so it is easier for the governors and governed of a state which chooses to undertake war to make that decision.<p>Space exploration is significantly more long-term. You're spending billions of dollars (not just lives) for what in the short-term does not seem like much benefit. Although landing on the moon and other such projects are incredible achievements, and although the development of the technologies that have allowed such achievements has dramatically impacted daily life, it's much harder to make clear to people the benefits of exploration in both a human or a economic cost.<p>If the benefit is defeating Nazi Germany, or Assad's Syria, or Osama Bin Laden, we're able to accept the costs. If the benefit is Tupperware, GPS, and some cool pictures of the lunar surface, then we will most likely not (not that I agree with that, it's just how most people see it).
<p><pre><code> As a people and a nation we have paid a price to learn
That in any exploration, there are some who don't return.
We are neither fools nor cowards, to be shaken now to know
What our founders could have told us, twice a hundred years ago.
-- Echo's Children, "Columbia"</code></pre>
The author has failed to say what we would have achieved by sending more people into risky space missions. For example, if our next goal is to get to Mars, we learn a lot about how to get the risks down by sending unmanned craft there.<p>The excited group of engineers when MSL touched down last year is testament to the fact that this landing is still very hard. (And the difficulty is not entirely due to not having a pilot in the craft.)
If the point is to address the subject rationally and dispassionately, then this language is out of place:<p>> But how much harder will it be to spare the resources when our cities are sinking, crops dying, population stagnating? It is cheaper now than it will ever again be. Debt, healthcare, war — these problems won’t be solved, leaving us free to tackle space, any time soon. They’ll probably get worse. And the best thing we can do for the Earth is get off of it.<p>An objective look at the data shows that the global state of human society is better now than it has ever been in history. There is no evidence that human civilization is at its peak.<p>Faking a sense of urgency is not a sustainable way to make the case for space exploration.