Comment by wins32767

I think this article misses the possibly that we had a shot to get an interplanetary civilization due to the accumulation of fossil fuels over the last ~400m years, but that we've consumed those resources not getting out into space meaningfully and therefore have missed the window (as it were). We've clearly exceeded the carrying capacity of Earth and the period from the 1950s to the 2050s may well be the only time period where there is enough civilizational/energy surplus to afford the extremely high upfront costs of creating self sustaining ecologies off of Earth. I hope I'm wrong, but if civilization collapses (as they all seem to do eventually), I'm not sure it will ever be possible for another Earth based species to get off planet meaningfully (due, for example, to the unique circumstances required to lay down large coal beds).