Moving off this planet would require a planet B and a means to get there. Neither of which is liable to become available in the next 100-1000 years. I'm absolutely in favor of space telescopes and exploration within our limited means, but Mars is not our new home in the sky.

Despite all our many advances, rockets are still all we got. Chinese had those 1000 years ago.

Whatever science might be used or money spent to send a few colonizers off into space would be better allocated towards keeping this planet livable.

Yes, an asteroid might strike us dead in an instant! But so what? We are nothing special.

Spreading our wonderful race throughout the galaxy is a horrible idea! They'd all just poison their worlds and go seeking new ones...

Like the Europeans poisoned life for so many and forced them to immigrate for political and religious freedom...where they in turn poisoned life for the Native Americans as they swept westward to the next ocean. Now they've run out of continents to exploit and poison and they need entire new worlds to satisfy their greed!

I'm sure there is plenty of life in the universe, but it doesn't need to spread here to survive nor do we need to destroy life(such as it might be) on other planets to preserve our own nest fouling species.

Good coffee, good weed, and time on my hands...