If you’ve not already caught the news, you should read about the 100 Year Starship Project. In the organisation’s own words it aims to develop a viable and sustainable model for persistent, long-term, private-sector investment into the myriad of disciplines needed to make long-distance space travel practicable and feasible.

Given the state of the earth, starship technology seems to me to be escapism for the few at the expense of the many. There are far more daunting challenges planet-side that should inspire us.

The biggest challenge of the next one hundred years will be the provision of potable water in sufficient quantity for a population that will top out around 9.5 billion on current estimates. Water wouldn’t be an issue if we weren’t polluting existing waterways, draining finite aquifers and melting our ice storage. But it will soon be the planet’s most pressing problem.

When we’ve tackled that we can move on to food, which is going to get more difficult as average global temperatures rise and harvests for many staples decline as a consequence.

The list doesn’t stop there.

Getting billions of people off a dying planet and re-establishing them on a viable alternative is beyond us in the time available. To me the 100 Year Starship Project seems merely a diversion that will only steal resources and focus from more pressing concerns.

Proponents of the project quote Einstein in support of the initiative: “The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them”. I agree with the principle of elevating our thinking, but the evidence I read indicates we no longer have time for trickle-down enlightenment.

We are – at best – at the tipping point in terms of global warming. Indeed, the acceleration of key indicators suggests we’re now past that point. Even if all our efforts are immediately targeted at mitigation, we face an up-hill battle to counter the trend.

And, unfortunately, our choices will be increasingly constrained the longer we avoid addressing the root causes of the situation. Having democratic governments in those countries contributing most to the problems makes it probable we’ll settle for palliative responses rather than the surgical intervention required to resolve them.

Importantly we still have the capacity to discuss initiatives such as the 100 Year Starship Project and to give the broader issues philosophical consideration. But I doubt that luxury will be there for us in forty years, let along one hundred.