lifeboat

But the question is: is there a planned procedure / contingency plan involving the Dragon as a lifeboat?

If making a lifeboat is the real goal, then let's colonize the moon.

> But the question is: is there a planned procedure / contingency plan involving the Dragon as a lifeboat?

I think the first step to finding a lifeboat is to start researching on space shuttles speeds (faster than light), wormholes, teleportation etc.

And once there, the lifeboat must somehow found a colony, a self-sustaining biosphere, which itself is a gargantuan task.

Discworld was like a lifeboat that kept me sane while growing up in the bible belt.

There will never not be lifeboat for everyone, nor was there ever not one for everyone.

If you are aware of a plan to use a Dragon as a lifeboat, please bring out some sources for that.

However, 'lifeboat for species' right now is not an explicit end goal for anyone who would be capable to fund that.

Especially since it's the people of Earth that will be funding this lifeboat.

A little over 300 or 600 calories, call the bigger serving lifeboat food.

Basically, it has to work for its main purpose (returning the crew to Earth as planned) anyway, insuring that it also works as a lifeboat.

Given your station/ship can move orbits very cheaply, your "lifeboat" could be extremely high performance.

The "mad scientist" view treats the entire world as a petri dish, and risks ignoring that we're currently sitting in the lifeboat they're rocking.

"Especially since it's the people of Earth that will be funding this lifeboat." Rich folks and companies, and maaaaybe governments, will be funding this--the same as all colonization efforts in the past.

If "lifeboat for species" is the goal, then going to Mars is a solution in that direction but not a particularly good one - building an underground colony in Antarctica or a self-sustainable isolated underwater colony would achieve the goal better, be reachable quicker, and at a lower cost.