I am all for it in principle. I believe that we owe it to ourselves and our future to make space travel, research, and colonization as feasible as possible.

At the present time, however, I have to believe that we would take all of our earthbound problems, inequities, ignorance, and failings into the solar system with us. Which makes us not a more prosperous civilization, but the same backwards civilization with a larger footprint.

I do believe however that our population is large enough that we can simultaneously devote maximum effort into bettering ourselves, becoming better stewards of this planet, and settling on other ones. To me it’s not an “either or” thing, and I reject any argument that glibly states that we’re so fucked up that we should never leave earth.

Edit: I’m going to change my answer. The more I think about it, the more I realize that my opinion on whether or not we should go to space is irrelevant. We are going to do it. It’s in us as a species to do it. The need, the drive, is innate, and the ramblings of a bunch of opinionated internet squibs isn’t going to change that.

So the question, perhaps, is not whether or not we should, but how do we best go about it without fucking it up? That’s a way more complex question.