[tzs]

> Humans should gain the ability to live off this planet sustainably. If we don't work on that now, then when?

I'd go farther and say humans must gain the ability to live off this planet sustainably, and eventually out of this solar system, if humanity is to survive long term.

However, just because a problem must be solved for humanity to survive doesn't necessarily mean any effort should be spent now on it.

Sometimes a problem is so far beyond current technology and theory that instead of having your best people spend their lives trying to make tiny advances toward solving it you are better off if they work on things that can actually be solved now, and in a few decades or centuries our general level of technology and theory will have advanced enough that the work that took our best people their whole careers to accomplish will be something that would be a decent homework problem in college.