Humans will become a multi-planetary species, says Peter Diamandis

Space has always been a place where man looks for answers to questions that have not been answered yet. It is critical for humankind to be able to explore space to get an understanding of our place in this universe but the funding to achieve this goal has gradually been reducing over the years because of governments cutting space budgets. Peter Diamandis changed that in 2004 by creating a 10 Million dollar X Prize that resulted in the first manned private spaceflight. The prize showed people that government was not the only way to get to Space.

When asked about his plans for the future at SingularityU India Summit in association with INK, Peter said "What I'm working towards is a couple of things. One is an economic engine that will open up space. If you look at the history of humanity, it has been looking for resources that has driven us to explore and build the railroads and the shipping lanes. If we can create an economy in which we are looking into space for metals and energy and real estate, there's enough value creation there that we can build the volume of traffic to bring the cost down. My company planetary resources is working towards that vision of the future. Folks like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Paul Allen are working on how to build reusable systems that bring the cost down so that we are not throwing away rockers like we have for the last fifty years."

"It's all about giving access to this new frontier. It's our generations that will see humans become a multi-planetary species, centuries ahead. I think we are going to see more discovery, more traffic, better economies and lower costs and that's what we are working towards" he continued.

When asked about what exactly his company does he replied "At planetary resources, our focus is on mining materials from asteroids. The moon will also be an important source of resources. From my standpoint, asteroids are an easier target because they are energetically closer than the moon and they are in no gravitational field. There are also lesser political issues with asteroids than there will be with the moon. I see the moon as eventually an important place that we are going to setup human economies."

Peter was instrumental in changing the role of governments in space travel. When asked about what role governments will play in the future of space, he said "I think ultimately governments will play an early role but I think it's going to business that pushes boundaries. I think it will setup the same way as mining companies and energy companies today, moving from the hands of the government to private sector. I think it's risky and requires large investments. In the early days, funding is coming from wealthy individuals and to some degree venture capital. The next phase is going to be the large corporate conglomerates, companies like Reliance and Shell. Primarily companies that have been in the resource industries."

After the moon, the next goal for humanity has always been Mars. When asked about why that has taken so long, Peter replied "The biggest challenge in putting a man on Mars is the capital. I think it's something Elon can do and will do. It's going to cost billions of dollars to fund it. The question is, will he fund it out of his own pocket, will it be in partnership with the government. There are only a handful of people in the world who can do this."
Investments in the field of space have received criticism from people that believe those resources are better spent on earth. To that peter replied"It's critically important that we become a multi planetary species, whether it's Mars or building colonies in free space. I think everything we have ever held of value on planet earth. We owe it to ourselves to back up the biosphere. I think it's our nature to explore and that drives us to be a more robust species. I think if we sat and did nothing, we become more subject to being wiped out. We spend more money in a year on bubblegum than we do on the space program. I think it's a ridiculous statement to say we should not be doing the space program."