Move it, or lose it. The long-term survival of our species may depend not only on negating menacing asteroids and comets that threaten Earth, but colonizing free space, the Moon and Mars, researchers said at a recent conference at Princeton University. Their idea of an “insurance plan” to first protect and then proliferate humanity into the cosmos involves taking up residence in large 10,000-person habitats, positioned between Earth and the Moon at first, and later spreading out to other niches within our solar system.