[ExI] Manned Spaceflight (Was: future fizzle)

[Tom Nowell]

In addition to the list of reasons given previously for sending people to other planets, there's one reason you haven't brought up: setting up colonies away from Earth, so just in case the big existential risk we disregarded comes and wipes out Earth-based humans. Stephen Hawking is among the people suggesting that colonising other planets might be a good idea.

http://hawking.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=65

However, to make a working colony we need to explore the resources and figure out how a colony could support itself and then start sending people. As such, a manned mission is only a small part of the whole work needed for this to happen.