I watch quite a lot of videos that roughly cover the topic of the cosmos. Some are highly speculative and come closer to futurism. All are grounded in some way in physics as we know it, so they are not science fiction per se. Their creators are often intelligent, well-educated and clearly excited by their subject.

Often as not there are questions raised about how human advancement will go and whether we will overcome the obstacles that becoming a space-faring race will entail. I enjoy that kind of thing but somewhere in the back of my mind is the thought that the argument is moot - we won't be around to trouble the planets, stars and interstellar domains.

That might sound a little pessimistic but the current lie of the land suggests I am on the right track. As a species we seem unable to get past the idea of war as a means of solving conflict. There has been some moral growth but no guarantee that things might not go backwards if conditions changed sufficiently.

Even if we get through the next 500 years or so and manage to establish communities on Mars or the Moon, even if we are mining asteroids and capturing greater and greater quantities of power from the Sun, even if the question of war is finally solved, this is only a temporary stay. The Moon will leave us, but not before the atmosphere is burnt away by an increasingly hotter Sun. It will be an ignominy of departures.

That is a long way in the future I know. Best to focus, I suppose, on one day at a time.