Space exploration is the ultimate plan B. Here’s why. | Garrett Reisman | Big Think

Space exploration is the ultimate plan B. Here’s why. Watch the newest video from Big Think: https://bigth.ink/NewVideo Join Big Think Edge for exclusive videos: https://bigth.ink/Edge ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Space exploration is more than just the ultimate adventure, our study and investigation of space yields great scientific rewards, says astronaut Garrett Reisman. Earth is wonderful, but it won't last forever, so it's important that we maintain a big picture view to ensure the survival of the human species. Exploring space is our ticket to ""the ultimate plan B,"" according to Reisman. If there were to occur a mass extinction event on Earth, the humans that inhabit another planet in our solar system will be the only hope of human survival. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- GARRETT REISMAN: Dr. Reisman was selected by NASA in 1998. His first mission was aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour, in 2008, with a 95 day mission aboard the International Space Station. His second mission was aboard the Space Shuttle Atlantis, in 2010. During these missions, Dr. Reisman performed 3 spacewalks, operated the Space Station Robot Arm and was a flight engineer aboard the Space Shuttle. He served as a technical consultant for the film Ad Astra and is currently a technical advisor for the TV Show For All Mankind. At present he is a Professor of Astronautical Engineering at USC, Motivational Speaker and Senior Advisor at SpaceX. Learn more at garrettreisman.com. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------- TRANSCRIPT: GARRETT REISMAN: There's a tremendous amount of science that comes out of space exploration. One is the scientific benefit that we get from understanding our solar system, understanding the composition and the makeup of all the other planets and the other bodies in our solar system. Our sun. We learn a lot about the Earth. We look back at the Earth with space assets. We learn about how the earth is changing, what's happening with climate change, all that kind of stuff. Then there are all the spinoffs and your Velcro, which wasn't actually invented for the space program. I don't think Tang was either but there's plenty of other things like smoke alarms, MRIs, cordless drills, all kinds of those wonderful things that we like to brag about. To me that's actually not a very good justification for space exploration, and I'll tell you why because we could do those things by having targeted R&D research for industrial and commercial applications probably more cost effectively. So it is true that we get lots of spinoffs, but I think the science return that we get from space exploration is actually much more important than any kind of spinoff. But there's yet another reason I think trumps all those, which is the fact that, I'll put it to you very flippantly. There's an old joke about why did the dinosaurs go extinct, and it's because they didn't have a space program, okay. So if you take the very, very big picture view, the very, very long view of this kind of on geological time, it's about survival of the species. The earth is fantastic and we need to do a much better job of taking care of it because I could tell you there's no other place that we know of in the entire universe that is as well suited for human life as this planet. That's why we evolved here and we have been evolving for eons to get to this point. And we've evolved in this environment, so this is our home. This is what we are made for. We're not going to find something better for us out there. We need to take care this place. However, again if you look at the very, very big picture, this place as wonderful as it is is not going to last forever. I mean at a minimum eventually the Sun is going to basically explode and the solar system is going to change and it won't be a hospitable place for any of us. Now if my kids are watching, do not be scared. Don't stay up all night and have nightmares about what I just said because we're talking about so far in the future that that's not something we have to worry about right now at all. There are other things. There have been many extinction events in the course of the earth's history. I think there have been about seven of them. The one everybody knows about is the extinction that took out all the dinosaurs. And there's a lot of different ways that can happen. You can get hit by an... Read the full transcript at https://ift.tt/2StahXu