[extropy-chat] NASA's Griffin: 'Humans Will Colonize the Solar System'

[Neil H.]

The Washington Post has an interview with NASA Head Mike Griffin in which he
discusses his views on space colonization:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/23/AR2005092301691.html

A few quotes:

"But the goal isn't just scientific exploration . . . it's also about
extending the range of human habitat out from Earth into the solar system as
we go forward in time. . . . In the long run a single-planet species will
not survive. We have ample evidence of that . . . [Species have] been wiped
out in mass extinctions on an average of every 30 million years. ... We
don't know of any other species anywhere, but while I cannot say that
multiple-planet species will survive, I think I can prove to you from our
own geologic record that single-planet species don't."

"Now, you know, in the sense that a chicken is just an egg's way of laying
another egg, one of our purposes is to survive and thrive and spread
humankind. I think that's worth doing. There will be another mass-extinction
event. If we humans want to survive for hundreds of thousands or millions of
years, we must ultimately populate other planets. Now, today the technology
is such that this is barely conceivable. We're in the infancy of it."

"I'm talking about that one day, I don't know when that day is, but there
will be more human beings who live off the Earth than on it. We may well
have people living on the moon. We may have people living on the moons of
Jupiter and other planets. We may have people making habitats on asteroids.
We've got places that humans will go, not in our lifetime, but they will go
there."

"generations of upper-level NASA managers have tried to characterize the
shuttle as routine and safe, and it is not routine, and other than in the
sense that a mountain climber would use the word, it's not safe. Mountain
climbing is an activity that's riskier than flying on the shuttle. If we
elect to go climb Mount Everest, the odds are 10 percent we're going to die.
That's riskier than getting on board the shuttle."
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