Let's consider extinction mitigation as a luxury? I posit that sooner or later, as technology improves, the relative cost of such projects will go down to a point where some group of people think it is a good idea.
I don't think new discoveries suddenly change the physics of escaping gravity wells. I question whether interplanetary trade will ever move beyond intellectual property.
Basically, colonization will have to be altruistically funded without any expectation of economic return. We've proven we have limited capacity for that.
Currently.
In a system where resources are allocated not to cover the needs of all, but instead to ensure that the victor gets their spoils, this is true.
But IF a civilization makes it to a point where self-sustaining planet settlement is even a real possibility, I think you just have to assume they are post-scarcity and post-currency. Economic return isn't really a thing, if everyone can get what they want whenever they want it.
Therefore, any species with a natural propensity to exploration and curiosity as an individual is going to necessarily seek out new places as a whole. The individual will drive the societal, I guess is what I mean there. Because I want to see something new, and there is no scarcity of resources, society as a whole gets to see something new.
>I question whether interplanetary trade will ever move beyond intellectual property.
Honestly, I don't think so. Because, again, I'm of the firm belief that once a society is able to establish off-world colonies successfully, economics stops meaning anything at all, really.
You might _explore_. You're less likely to _colonise_. The only way you get the sort of geometric expansion people love to talk about is if there's a very strong imperative to colonise, and it's just not clear that it exists.