It's soon going to be time when we think of base camps in space on the moon or on another planet or asteroid in quite the way we operate an Antarctic station

Stories from many ancient cultures have described events like a great deluge which rinses out the continents and readies them for a fresh recipe of life. This time it's a rapidly melting polar icecap. Seas rising to submerge some island groups and affecting many coastal cities too. In those ancient sagas, a part of humanity gets rescued by a leader or a prince in a sizeable boat. This time around, it could well have to be a fleet of spacecraft.

As fears of a large catastrophe rise on Earth, the questions would be about whether a global disaster preparedness team can do something to mitigate its impact and save even 75 crore people, which is about 10% of the current world population and be able to nourish them and rebuild civilisation and restore it technologically, socially, and psychologically.

Let's also consider that about five lakh people (considering a 25-year horizon, this number could be at least tenfold if you add twenty more years) will manage to leave on space shuttles and similar long-distance transport towards nearby satellites or asteroids on which some habitation may be managed.

Now if you had the money and are rather good at packing your family's travel cases, which of these options would you pick? Which seems to you to be a better bet or the more appealing proposition?

On the one hand, a familiar topography, a sky whose clouds and colours are usually reassuring and in which familiar birds and a few airplanes fly. Ponds, wells, and reservoirs of water. On the other, an escape far from the disastrous effects of an asteroid hit, nuclear blasts, submergence of many vast plains, overcrowding, food scarcity and social disintegration. Away and away into a challenging situation of innovation and adaptation. The further way forward from an outbound flight or on a nearby surface in our solar system will surely emerge under pressure. We will hope!

The idea of getting elevated into a better location in space also appeals to those who note with concern that the countries which show 2.5% annual growth (nearly the average for the African continent) or higher in their population are also known for backwardness and strife while the most advanced ones have less than 0.5% population growth or even are in the negative. As the pressure mounts, at least the elite may crave for a celestial sanctuary from the rabble! It may all be an evolutionary push towards space travel to increase humanity's migration opportunities.

Given the promising signs of success during the past year on the Space frontier, this could be a good time to give your measurements for a space suit, and even put aside Rs.5.5 lakhs for a family member to gain some 'no gravity' experience in a flight. Pay up about Rs.25 lakh and you can even go on an orbit trip (like Frank Borman in 1968 on the Apollo 8) around the moon - which surely redefines the concept of a honeymoon cruise.

Flight operators also expect that a trip to Mars could cost as little as `7.5 lakh as economies of scale start to kick in. Also, on the accommodation front, for those who want to experience a space holiday before considering a shift of residence outside Earth, a 12-day orbiting hotel stay package is already on offer.

It's going to be several more decades before any of this is going to really get middle-class where we will have our season tickets, and carry our own theplas and khakhras or our amla pickle on board though. On the other hand, the clear and present dangers on Earth are much closer to affecting us drastically and push us to deal with them collectively.

A great recent lesson in crisis tackling has come our way through a global pandemic. Civic leaders have had to take firm and swift decisions and issue strict directives. There has been compliance to a very great extent despite the murmurs, conspiracy theories and a few claims made for quack remedies. If only ecological perils such as air pollution, toxicity in water, soil damage from pesticide, emissions, deforestation etc. could be attended to with similar alacrity the country would have much less vulnerability to threats developing from them.

In the last few years, segregation of waste has got implemented, odd and even number plates, sprinkler irrigation in gardens, cab pooling, CNG bus services, electric bus shuttles, solar panels, river cleaning, some reduction in plastic bags, energy saving fridges... a beginning does seem to have been made, but a lot more is needed urgently.

More tree cover needs to be spared from the axe and so development plans will need to be redrawn. Remember that shers are the holders of the forest, and not your corporate shareholders. The tendency in business circles to consider the ecological viewpoint as a nuisance that curtails profitability has to be replaced with a willingness to be flexible, and a commitment to redemptive action wherever there is a compromise.

In terms of upcoming opportunity, given our advancement in Space programmes, when the world boasts of some twenty spaceports which have regular departures and arrivals, 2-3 of them could be located in India.  This would mean transit passengers to cater to, and an opportunity for the airline sector to fly space travellers in and out from these centres.

The way to prepare for this new chapter in history would include introducing space-related courses in university curricula — there are many aspects to research and design for, as it is an uncharted arena. A lot of engineering knowledge will have to be adapted for a new context and a different set of operating conditions. It's also an opportunity to gear up our think-tanks, build planetariums and labs for the Space Race, to be ahead or on par with the rest of the advanced world.

Planning for the first spaceport could give the whole thing a fillip. Identifying a location with a support zone around it, and creating the needed ancillary infrastructure for it will mean that some of the main global operators would start taking interest in using our facilities. We have only to look back at how humble the origins of the automobile industry were, or even how the early days of aviation were, to realise that we are not a whole century away at all from regular space travel.

The most important breakthrough that'll be required will be that of food production outside the Earth's atmosphere. Any sizeable colony of terrestrials in space will have to depend on some supplies reaching from Earth, and the ability to solve the nutritional sustenance question will play a vital role in opening up possibilities for us. It's soon going to be time when we think of Base Camps in space on our moon or on another planet/asteroid in quite the way we operate an Antarctic station.

When we realise the scarcity of human-habitable surfaces in this galaxy, we become more heedful about ecological balance! The countdown actually begins when and where we start to count. Both to save our environment from further degradation, and to reach the next horizon.

(The writer is a creative director, advertising faculty, and an amateur epistemologist. The views expressed are personal.)