Industrial civilization is a one-time affair. If it falls, it is gone forever. However, each such civilization has a very narrow window of opportunity to transcend its limits.
It could be that our species' rapacious damage to its environment due to immaturity and selfish shortsightedness will doom civilization itself and confine all its survivors to this ravaged planet.
But by fundamentally altering the US space policy, President Obama, probably inadvertently, has opened a window of opportunity for humanity. The time it will remain open is short and the path through it is very narrow. But, as of right now, it is POSSIBLE that we shall transcend time and eternity. Our descendants may live in a vast universe of infinite possibilities.
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