Life insurance for life: the survival case for expanding beyond Earth
Elon Musk calls becoming multiplanetary life insurance for life, Chris Mason argues from extinction awareness that humanity has a duty to survive and sets out a roadmap for engineering life to reach new worlds, and Robin Hanson weighs whether humanity should choose to expand into space given competition and global governance. Framing spaceflight as a question of survival rather than adventure changes how its costs and priorities are argued about.
What does Elon Musk call a self-sustaining city on Mars? Show answer
"Life insurance for life": a second home that keeps life going if something ends civilization on Earth.
What chance of a civilization-ending event does Musk say is enough to justify becoming multiplanetary? Show answer
Even a 1 percent chance, in his view, is enough.
What is Musk's test for whether a Mars city counts as insurance? Show answer
Whether it could survive if the ships from Earth stopped coming for any reason. An outpost that depends on resupply is not insurance.
How much equipment might a self-sustaining city on Mars need, according to Musk? Show answer
At least a million tons, because it cannot be missing anything, from iron ore to a semiconductor fab.
What does landing a ton on Mars cost today, by Musk's estimate, and how much must that improve? Show answer
On the order of a billion dollars, and it needs to improve by at least a factor of a thousand.
Why does Chris Mason say humans have a duty to expand beyond Earth? Show answer
Extinction awareness, the sense of the frailty of all life, is a uniquely human trait, and it gives us a duty only we can exercise so far.
What has Mason's lab done to prepare cells for space radiation? Show answer
It used epigenetic CRISPR techniques to switch on DNA repair genes before radiation exposure, without altering the genes themselves.
How long does Mason expect self-sufficient food systems on Mars to take? Show answer
Several hundred years, even though Mars is close and survivable in sealed habitats.
Why does Robin Hanson say expanding into space is a choice to let competition return? Show answer
Colonies beyond the solar system cannot be centrally controlled, so an expanding interstellar civilization cannot be managed from one center.
How quickly does Hanson think civilization could recover from a nuclear war? Show answer
Within 10,000 to 100,000 years, which makes such events serious but not necessarily final.
What attitude to risk does Hanson describe as ideal? Show answer
Caution about correlated risks that could wipe out all your descendants, and neutrality toward uncorrelated ones, like a portfolio of descendants.