“Yeah, my first reaction is “this is low on my priority list.”
When we lobbied for the funding of the STS Space Shuttle in 1971-1972 on Capitol Hill in a Congressional Hearing, one of our arguments was the urgency of establishing permanent Human habitats beyond the Earth to prolong the ability of Humanity to survive.
In particular, the establishment of Human communities among the asteroids of this Solar System is a major key to human survival. It is a foregone conclusion all of humanity inhabiting the Earth will be killed by one or more catastrophic events sooner or later, with sooner being any day of the future. Anything from the impact of a large asteroid on the Earth to the occurrence of a Gamma Ray Burst (GRB) in our own galaxy can occur on any day. The same can be said about any human communities in the atmospheres on the surfaces of other planets and moons in this Solar System. This is because the only protection against the occurrence of GRB events to close to our Sun is a thick shield of matter such as the rock and iron of a large asteroid habitat.
The Solar System’s asteroids offer enough resources to permanently support human populations thousands of times larger than our present population on the Earth. These asteroidal habitats are capable of sheltering Humanity indefinitely, and long after Human life on the Earth has become extinct.
Consequently, the GRB events we are observing in the distant galaxies have an immediate application to present life on Earth to the extent they provide warning for humanity to take immediate precautions for the permanent survival of Humanity.
Of course, there are always people who could care less about the survival of Humanity.
Ok, I’ll bite. If a gamma ray burst powerful enough to kill everything on earth, including cockroaches and liberals, occurred in our neighborhood, wouldn’t it wipe out everyone hiding in the asteroid belt as well? If the idea is that extraplanetary settlements would have to be heavily shielded for the space environment, wouldn’t it be much easier, cheaper, and faster to establish well defended and well stocked havens here on Earth, and keep them staffed on a rotating basis?