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Expansion 353 greater the range of societal standards and values, then the safer the human species will be. Peopling other worlds, concluded Sagan, is our new telos.”° Expansion could give us access to greater resources and larger concep- tions of what is possible. It would enlarge our niche in the Galaxy. It would be, quite literally, the expansion of intelligence. Astronomy may show us how small we are; spaceflight suggests how large we might someday be. Expansion may determine which civilizations have the greatest control over their futures in a universe that is otherwise indif- ferent to their fate. Patience, Take Two The bolder the dream, the more probably must the dreamer leave it to be fulfilled by others. —Science writer Nigel Calder, 1978°’ Like those who foresaw early detection of alien intelligence, advocates of human expansion have been consistently overoptimistic about how soon each phase will get under way. Visionaries once predicted humans landing on Mars as early as the 1980s; current estimates have slipped to 2030. Further delay would not be surprising. That is not a reason to give up. Like the search for extraterrestrial intelligence, expansion is a task that extends beyond individual human lifetimes. It, too, implies accepting longer timescales of societal endeavor. Over the past 500 years, we have changed our understanding of our position in the cosmos. Over the next 50 years, proposed robotics pioneer Rodney Brooks, our new conceptions will empower us to change that posi- tion. We are breaking out of our roles as passive observers.”* Within a century—a blink of the cosmic eye—our vehicles may carry us to the outer limits of our solar system. Our interstellar probes may be racing outward into the galactic night. This future is not inevitable; it is a matter of choice. Choosing not to expand beyond the Earth would be a gigantic failure of nerve. It would guarantee the limiting of the human future. By turning away from expansion, we could doom ourselves to being a marginal species, and to our eventual extinction. Will our descendants be interstellar colonizers? If they are, expansion could lead to the rediversification of humanity. By opening new ecological ranges, it could be a conscious evolutionary step, leading to adaptive radia- tions and eventually to new species. We may be on the threshold of changing our role in the universe—but only if we act. If we do not expand our capabilities and our influence, we