Real Obvi wrote:
I'm not one of your intended respondents (people who don't think we went to the moon). But I will address your question nonetheless.
1) Regardless of whether we are stuck on Earth "forever", the human species' ultimate fate is extinction.
2) Traveling to the Moon is nice. Traveling to Mars, much more difficult. Seriously colonizing either (with a self-sustaining, growing, thriving society) may or may not be possible. It actually seems unlikely.
3) Such colonization would be much, MUCH harder than sustaining human civilization on Earth. Earth was made for our species and our species was made for Earth (evolutionarily speaking)
4) Exploring the solar system and beyond is a natural and noble endeavor. I don't think it should be seen as a way to extend the ultimate timeline of humanity.
I think all of these points are true - at least, for anatomically and biologically modern humans. I imagine that some sort of offspring will continue (biological, AI, or otherwise) as long as environmental conditions on earth are stable long enough to allow construction of a true starship. I doubt that biologically modern humans will ever permanently settle the moon or Mars or travel through space to another system, but we can make something that can