[johnfjacobi]

Maybe we're speaking past each other or using terms with different definitions. Either that or you're arguing from a sort of Cartesian standpoint. Because you're question has obvious answers: dolphins, trees, literally everything underneath the umbrella term of "biosphere"...

And if you only mean conscious life, (1) I'm not sure why that is a special consideration, but I am familiar with the discussions around this point; (2) it is more than possible that certain animals, like other primates, dolphins, whales, etc., have some degree of conscious experience, and it is also more than possible that we won't find anything more obvious than that on another planet.

Edit: Ah, I see. You were saying there is no life in space. I was thinking more along the lines of, "what about all the environmental damage we will do in order to travel to outer space." I just didn't realize that I should have included that concern in my initial comment, since for some reason I thought it would be obvious.

[freehunter]

Yep, by life I meant "life on Earth". I guess I should have clarified. What I mean is, if Earth gets destroyed, all life everywhere (as far as we know it) gets destroyed. So we should do our best, whatever it takes, to make sure we spread life to other planets to mitigate that.

Sure we may cause environmental damage to get there, but I think that is far outweighed by the benefit of being a multi-planet species.