Bowser's musings about a dying race sending off its genetic material to the stars in order to secure some sort of immortality has been proposed before, although I can't remember where I read it.

As for his original point, "Is Man really serious about colonizing the Solar System", the answer to it is, like the answer to so many of the other Great Questions, "Yes and No".

Space exploration is expensive, very expensive, extravagantly expensive; in terms of money, effort, and resources. Up to now, only governments have had the resources to pull it off. If the payoff were large enough, private enterprise would be able to borrow the money to do it, but so far that has not been the case. The returns may be great, perhaps even inevitable, but it is too indistinct and too far off in the future for it to attract financial commitment from anyone today.

There have been space-based businesses that have proven extremely profitable, such as orbital communications relays, and to a lesser extent, navigational systems and earth resources platforms. But even in these cases, it is government, not business, that has taken the initial risk and investment and even the lion's share of the maintenance costs. Later, when the enterprise proved viable, the benefits and profits were handed over to the private sector. I am not being critical of this, this is part of the function of government, it is one of the reasons we have government and it would be churlish to forget that.

Our historical models for this are flawed. The New World was explored with money from both private and public sources, and those early maritime investments were probably comparable to space funding today, as a fraction of the gross domestic products of the societies involved. Columbus was originally financed not by Queen Isabela, but by a rich merchant who was pressured by Isabella to bankroll him. I don't know if his banker ever recouped his investment, although the Spanish Crown certainly made out. Columbus and his heirs, of course, only got pennies on the dollar.

But although the Age of Exploration may have showered great benefits on the world, the nations and companies which initiated it did not fare so well in the long run.

Part of the reason for this is the security requirements of profitable far-flung colonies also required great spending on armies and navies to secure them, and these costs were rarely entered in the same ledger as the one where the profits were inscribed to be shown to the stockholders. Also, the colonists (such as our own forebears in North America) often felt no need to pay for their share of their own maintenance and security. It appears sometimes there is indeed a free lunch.

In the 14th century, China had the best maritime technology* and was a competitor to Europe and the Arabs in the world trade and colonial sweepstakes; but gave up the race primarily due to a lack of enthusiasm from its government to support its own merchants. The Middle Kingdom paid a great price for its failure to embrace Mercantilism.

Again, we are faced with the wide gulf between what is possible, and what is probable. We can go anywhere we want in the Solar system. But even if we can eventually make a buck on it, it will be our descendants that do so. We will take a bath on the investment.

*In the 13th century, the Chinese developed the first truly viable, huge, ocean-going, multi-masted cargo ships, equipped with an efficient fore-and-aft rig which could sail to windward, a centerline rudder, compartmented hulls, accurate charts and magnetic compasses. Europe and the Arabs never brought this all together until centuries later. The Chinese exploited trade in the Pacific littoral, and even sent a fleet of hundreds of merchantmen and warships across the Indian Ocean to Arabia, but a new Emperor, beholden to business interests eager to maintain their monopoly on local commerce, withdrew his support to the merchants eager to expand foreign trade with the west and to break the Arab monopoly as middlemen to the Silk Road trade.