James Lovelock

Gaia must continue her work of cooling the planet, because it is now old and frail. With age, as I am all too well aware, we become more fragile.

I am pretty sure that only Earth has incubated a creature capable of knowing the cosmos. But I am equally sure that the existence of that creature is imperilled. We are unique, privileged beings and, for that reason, we should cherish every moment of our awareness. We should now be cherishing those moments even more because our supremacy as the prime understanders of the cosmos is rapidly coming to end.

If we have the international will to construct a rocket carrying a deflection package, then, for the first time ever, a planet of the solar system, the Earth, will have evolved the capacity to sense the approach of a large rock blundering through space on a deadly collision course and, much more than this, it will have evolved the means and the power to deflect its dangerous trajectory and save itself

The pioneer and would-be spacefarer Elon Musk has said he would like to die on Mars, though not on impact. Martian conditions suggest death on impact might be preferable.

Perhaps Mars could provide hermit cells for the ultra-rich who might spend half their fortunes on voluntarily travelling there. Whatever cash was left could be spent on building and maintaining a tiny capsule of life

from which escape would be impossible. It would actually be far less cruel to allow them to build their prison cells on the ice cap of Antarctica. At least the air is breathable.