With the coming of the Millennium, there is evidence of a growing angst about the future role of humanity, exemplified by a disillusionment with science and technology, so that some writers are even wondering if human intelligence is not a regrettable accident. In short, people are wondering whether science has robbed us of former religious certainties and comforts, leading to our extinction. From this it would appear that evolution or creation is actually pointless. If evolution is merely about the survival of DNA, then so it would seem to be, as such could have been achieved by unicellular Pre-Cambrian Age life.
    However, the last 100 million years show that just as Life was a qualitative advance in organization and complexity over chemistry and physics, there is now underway the next qualitative change : the development of Mind. The dinosaurs, according to palaeontologist Dale Russell, were on the way to mental development, while the Cetacea are, perhaps, examples of a different kind. A distinguishing mark of humanity is science and technology.
    Science, in the form of astronomy, palaeontology and archaeology, has recently shown that these negative prospects apply to humans only if we remain Earthbound. The recurring mass extinctions revealed by geologists, and the swarm of near-Earth asteroids shown to us by astronomers, prove beyond doubt that long-term survival and growth of Mind is impossible on the Earth. The archaeological discoveries at Easter Island show that the threat of ecological collapse into barbarism by tree-felling, over-population and resource-depletion, is in time inevitable in the larger world.
    Fortunately, the same science and intelligence which marks out humanity has given us the only practicable means of escape, namely, the ability to leave the womb-planet. Research by space agencies and privately funded groups such as Gerard O'Neill's Space Studies Institute, have shown that with the advent of fully reusable space vehicles in the next 10 years, it will be possible to begin utilising lunar raw materials, and from those same near-Earth asteroids, to build island colonies in high orbit and, in time, throughout the solar system. Such a process could well develop naturally out of space tourism, via hotels and, later, full resort complexes, as has happened on Earth. Apart from creating a universal civilisation immune to asteroid impacts and ecological exhaustion, the diversity of habitats allowed by this scenario, together with human immigration into an unoccupied biological niche, would allow rapid evolution to the point where our present imperfect species could expect to make way for a superior model.
    With the long struggle for limited energy and materials behind us, and the end of the long grinding battle against gravity, maybe the kind of higher being predicated by so many human religions could at last flower. Thus science, so far from taking away our sense of purpose, shows us a new one which, moreover, is essential to our health and survival. Furthermore, the undertaking of space colonisation will require a long-term view over generations, like the building of the cathedrals and pyramids of old. Such attitudes require dedication, deferral of short-term hedonism, discipline and social cohesiveness - in a word, the virtues preached by the great religions of history, and not least, Freemasonry itself.
    So, in the constructive human conquest of Space, we have at last found a worthy goal, validated by science, with the socially and spiritually enlarging characters of a great religion - I have called this ideology Evolutionary Cosmic Destiny. The Bahai teacher, Abdul Baha, wrote that the 'Bird of Truth' flies with two wings : without Science, Religion is mere superstition, while without religion, science becomes arrogance. This marriage of science and religion - or spirituality if you prefer - so sorely needed by riven humanity, could be the best gift of the Space Age to the Third Millennium : a marriage made in Heaven.

Dr Michael Martin-Smith Bsc, MRCGP, FBIS, is a Fellow of the Space Studies Institute, and originator of the UK Humble Space Telescope educational satellite project. Author of Man, Medicine and Space; Flight member of the Mayflower Project (http://www.mayflowerrocket.com), President of Space Age Associates (http://www.astronist.demon.co.uk/index.html).