Very good rationalizations Daniel. I feel the same way as you do about "saving ourselves as a species by colonizing other planets."
It negates working out a plan to "save ourselves as a species" by learning to avoid ever increasing destructive wars among ourselves (especially the "pre-emptive" ones).
We evolved here and are adapted to this world, it's climate and it's atmosphere.....a symbiotic relationship.

Living, breathing and working in space and on other worlds would be similiar to taking a fish out of water and watching it survive. I gave up on the IDEA of even being able to ORBIT the earth in my lifetime,.... to enjoy the breath-taking view of my home planet. (A lofty perch if you like.) I always wondered what the astronaut meant when he said we looked like a jewel from space, and you couldn't see any borders. If we would put our differences behind us and JOIN in this endeavor, we might be further ahead by now.

I joined the Mars Society back in the late 80's when ONMI magazine ran a poll on whether we thought joining with the Russians for a space mission would be acceptable to me. I thought it was a great idea.
If you see my album pages, you'll see my take on the space program.

By the way, your impersonations of HZ posters along with RL at Christmas was hilarious. Are we really all that transparent? You certainly got us all pegged.

Good luck on your doctoral program as well.