Dennis Overbye, in the New York Times, says we did not conquer space 40 years ago when we landed on the Moon, we just learned how hard it is. We also learned how expensive it is.  Scientific and manned-mission efforts will continue as prestige markers for a while yet, and commercial activity will increase slowly. The main driver for space exploration will continue to be military, as has been the case for government support of astronomy since its birth as astrology. It became astronomy when precise measurement allowed navigation and surveying accuracy, which meant substantial advantages for the more accurately piloted naval force, or the efficiently deployed land forces.

Isaac Asimov, who was a leader in making speculative fiction scientific, imagined (among others) a future where robots' installed morals, his Three Laws, would invite a more basic Law, that of promoting the health and future of the human race. One particular robot, who has deduced this new Law, acts to enforce it, by starting a nuclear reaction intended to make Earth eventually uninhabitable. This forces humanity out of its sleepy satisfied state, which comprises a handful of planets colonized by wealthy explorers, and the hugely overpopulated home planet.

As Yogi Berra pointed out, it is very hard to make predictions, especially about the future. But we can now predict with a lot of confidence that Earth's average temperature will rise. We can predict with some confidence that efforts to slow that effect will be at best too little, too late, as nations now pumping CO2 into the atmosphere will not succeed in transforming their technology and economies sufficiently, in time to prevent substantial change. And we can predict that our population will continue to increase.

Most human cultures include a faction that breaks away, wanders, explores. America was founded by a self-selected population of mostly this type of person, and while we also produce plenty of those content to stay home, we had the frontier to attract the explorers. Humanity seems to have been launched into modern history by just such a group, that left east Africa something like 50,000 years ago, crossed the Red Sea into the Arabian Peninsula, followed its greener coastline into India, and subsequently branched into two populations, one of which moved back into Anatolia and Europe, while the other continued into China, populating Indonesia and Australia along the way.

Since we all descend from this group, that left home, it is reasonable to assume we will continue to have those who explore and inhabit the frontier. Why did we leave the Eden of east Africa? Looking at modern humans, we leave home because of crowding, because of desire for opportunity, and because of irreconcilable political or cultural tension. Genetic evidence suggests modern humans were once a tiny band, maybe as few as a hundred, but more likely a thousand or a few thousand. This could have been a faction that followed one clan leader, and could not find reconciliation with the tribes inhabiting the home turf.

We have seen this occur in recent history, in the Pilgrim effort, and the very successful Mormon migration. While the occasional wealthy centenarian may move into a space habitat to eke out a few more decades of life, large population movement will not be economically attractive anytime soon. But major churches can amass large funds, and have incentives to establish life away from polluting immorality and unbelievers. They might be the first to establish meaningful space habitats.

Industry will compete for resources out in the asteroids, and may find useful quantities of good fusion fuel on the Moon's surface. Likely it will be a slow, creeping, and fitful process, with early efforts failing, and later ones avoiding the mistakes of the first tries. If Earth continues to become a difficult environment, that will simultaneously promote development of protective habitat design, and make it easier and more worthwhile to move out (for those with the wherewithal).

Still, we have to try to preserve Earth's climate as we found it, the one that allowed the explosion of agriculture on which civilization grew. As far as we can tell, which is pretty far, we are the only technological civilization around, the only one that can consider the Universe and its meaning, the only one that can remember, and the only one with a sense of the future. Even if we mostly fail to stem climate change we will learn a lot about what is achievable, making it possible to eventually restore a favorable climate, and to change hostile planets to habitable.

No place in the Universe is safe from change, sometimes violent, and we can feel good about our tendency to produce those who aren't content or comfortable among the throng---they will help keep the amazing experiment of life and consciousness going into the indefinite future. One more thing we can deduce from history is that humans are hard to kill off. Even intentional genocides fail, and no plague will sicken everyone. Life is tough, or it would not have started so early, while Earth was being pounded by dinosaur-killers regularly. Let's hope that we make enough progress expanding into the local area before the next Big One leaves its mark, like happened to Jupiter in the previous decade.