E.T. Exists!!!

Therein lies the problem. It is that type of thinking that prevents us from blasting off toward Cigna 8 on our 40% Speed of Light spaceship. It is this "competition, us versus them" mentality that has created an ever deepening rut. By splitting humanity into groups based on the specific patch of dirt they reside on, we split our powers of innovation and derail any attempts at true progress. Only by joining together can we overcome the obstacles that lay before us. Going into space should not be thought of as an option, a business opportunity, a triumph over rivals, or the idea of science nerds. It should be thought of as humanity's next step in evolution, a milestone of a maturing civilization. Granted, it won't happen the way we imagine for quite some time, the Enterprise is going to take us awhile, but we have around 5 billion years to get there... and only 5 billion years. Regardless of what people feel, we HAVE to leave this planet eventually, it won't be an option when our sun starts getting hungry. Of course, 5 billion years is longer than the Earth is old right now and most of us believe we will have killed ourselves by that time, but not if every country becomes apart of the United Countries of Earth, and not if we change our way of thinking. Space travel should be thought of as similar to our avoidance of extinction. There's no real logical reason why we should avoid extinction, it's just something that is an unquestionably bad thing. In fact, it is both the question and the answer. Space travel exists above our petty disagreements, it transcends our political and religious squabbles as it affects every human being. It makes me shake my head when I see people ask what the point is to go into space, or that it's too hard and expensive, don't let your mind be that small! This is so much greater and important than anything we have ever done in the past that it's surprising we aren't out there already. This goal is immune to such ridiculous and restrictive things like cost and difficulty. Okay, but, what IS the point? How do we front the costs of this? How do we get everyone on board (literally and figuratively)? Where do we go? How do we get there? What's out there that we want? What does this have to do with the debate? The Point: Before we can discuss The Point, we have to understand how meaningless that question is. What's the point of waking up in the morning? To go to work. What's the point in going to work? To make money. What's the point of money? To use as a currency for things like food and shelter. What's the point of food and shelter? So I don't die. What's the point of avoiding death? So I can stay alive. What's the point of staying alive? So I don't die... ad infinitum. We get to a circular argument and we never reach the true meaning of our actions. Because, there is no meaning, and thus no point. We have to try and break this impeding mindset of finding a reason to do things. We have to let "beneficial for all humanity" be enough of a reason to move forward as a species, lest we continue to ponder in our dark corner of the universe till our time is up. While we could point to a great number of reasons why space travel should be attempted, it all boils down to, we just have to. The Cost: Payment is an arbitrary human invention based on our selfish need for a reason to do hard work. It is what keeps us (most of us) from sitting under a rock smoking peyote all day while watching the clouds. It is a simple way of avoiding true altruism by making both parties benefit, usually with the seller getting the most. The fact that NASA has to ask the government for money, but the military is drowning in it, is just disgraceful. If all the countries on the planet combined into one, money won't be an issue. If the United States gives 25% of their military budget to NASA and space companies, money won't be an issue. Money is only an issue right now because the U.S government is run by morons with more interest in getting re-elected than the country they're supposed to be running. This type of problem will never solve itself or by a soft touch, it must be solved with force. The price of space launches are hyper inflated due to companies taking advantage of NASA's semi-large budget, this is quite literally corporate fiends slowing down our progress so they can make an extra buck, a shameful pus filled sore they are for doing so. The Population: We can't take everyone. Most of the criticisms aimed at space colonies, ignoring all the other questions, is how are we supposed to sustain 7 billion people on a planet that isn't anywhere near Earth in terms of resources. This is one of those things where our soft-hearted need to help the needy and weak doesn't apply. Similar to the movie 2012, but with far less rich people, we must be incredibly selective as to who we take into space. Specific qualities immediately stand out, such as: Physical Fitness, Mental Stability, Above Average Intelligence, Emotional Stability, adequate Scientific Knowledge, and the ability to produce offspring. These already eliminates a huge number of people and it will only shrink further when other restrictions are put in place. The people who are left behind will still have Earth for quite a long time, so it's not like we would be leaving them to their doom. Attempting to take everyone will result in certain failure. The Destination: Right now, we don't have a clear idea about where we will go. We can't just take off in a general direction and hope for the best, so we need to have a specific destination in mind before we really take off somewhere. All the other places in our solar system, even mars, isn't sufficient for building a true human colony. There have been a few planets that might support us that have been found, but they're very far away. We need to spend more time and money on building better telescopes to look around us for an adequate new home. The Means: Chemical rockets need to be trashed and forgotten about, they simply won't get us where we need to go in a proper amount of time. Ion Drives are nice, but they have worse acceleration than a dog with one leg. They can theoretically let us reach enormous speeds, but we'll need to see it put into practice before we can devote our energy to it. Other ways are being explored right now, and space devoted companies are speeding up progress, but we'll have to wait and see what all we can create. Perhaps the new hot fusion engine Lockheed/Martin claims to be testing could suffice. We must also remember that building a spaceship specifically to reach a destination is only one way of doing it, building a movable space habitat would be a more feasible plan. It would let us have a base of operations to explore space without having to take the risk of landing on a hostile planet. More technology to create self-sustaining production equipment should be a must have goal for this kind of thinking, since we can't just radio in to Earth for more resources... plus if we left those people behind, they probably wouldn't want to send us anything. 3D printing food seems to be a viable way of keeping everyone fed, we just need to find a way to keep getting bio material to print. The Want: Domination! Or, more accurately, flourishment. Spreading among the stars will increase our knowledge, increase our odds of survival, allow us to possibly find other life, give us access to more material to build with by mining asteroids and material rich planets, force us to adapt to changing environments and conditions that will drive innovation on a level we have never seen, give us a grand meaning to our existence, give us a chance to explore an almost infinite amount of space and never see anything twice (unless we get turned around), allow us to spread life to other planets that might one day evolve into a separate intelligent species, allow us to speciate from our Earthling cousins and become something even greater (genetic enhancements, artificial selection, etc). There are probably many more benefits to such a venture that I can't even fathom because it's something we have never done. The Debate: While none of this goes to help me prove why an intelligent species exists outside our own planet, it does address the debate topic itself. That one day we will become E.T. I don't see this as an if, but a when.