[KellhusSmellhus]

As long as the resources are not orthagonal the problems are not orthagonal. Meaning the money and effort shooting rockets could be put into fixing the environment, the "defense" problem, and all kinds of suffering and death.

One could argue that space could give us a shitload of resources to solve those other issues.

On a related note I would like to plug the meme that "humanity" as a whole is worth shit; what matters is the qualia of actual humans and then other possibly conscious beings. I don't care whether there are humans somewhere in space if we down here die from nuclear holocaust, global warming, aging or hunger. I am not "humanity" and neither is anyone else. We are all individuals striving to survive and not suffer, and sure we can cooperate in that endeavour and create superorganisms to aid us - but the emphasis is on "aid", which is not "enslave". I shit on any superorganism building meme that does not put actual humans or consciousnesses first.

EDIT: typos

[colordrops]

But the amount spent on space travel compared to all the other expenses is negligible, making it orthogonal for all intents and purposes.

[Veedrac]

Bill Gates was answering in the context his own philanthropic efforts. He, and billionaires like him, certainly would suffer from major opportunity-cost losses by investing in space travel suboptimally.

[KellhusSmellhus]

I wonder whether those experts and resources used on space could do feasible climate engineering...

The only environmental existential risk (apart from the human extended phenotype of course :) ) is climate-based, no?

[colordrops]

You can't really make people work on things they aren't interested in though. The experts that are involved in the space industry may not function well in other industries, regardless of imminent doom.

[KellhusSmellhus]

But money spent on space interested experts could be spent on climate interested experts.

[colordrops]

We are going in circles. My original point was that the money spent on space travel is negligible compared to other expenses.