Given that we're a primate species entirely adapted for life here on Earth and are struggling with the artificial environments we've accidentally created (cities, complex supply chains) it is unclear why some people imagine that humans would survive elsewhere in the universe. Of course, silly sci-fi presents a charming picture of cowboys in space, but our entertainments are a very unreliable guide to reality.

In the real world, the thousands of problems that present insuperable barriers to human existence beyond the surface of the Earth are such that although we'll squander trillions of dollars in the years ahead to establish small bases on the Moon and no doubt on Mars, these attempts will have only one benefit: they will prove definitively that humans are adapted only for life here on Earth and that there is precisely zero chance of us ever becoming a "space-faring species" even if we manage to avoid self-extermination in the next century or so.