Evolution and Extraterrestrial Travel

A significant vacillation in Darwinism is between the Evolutionary Principle and the Survival Principle.  Generally, the former is subordinated to the latter.  But that one species evolves out of another as a means to survival is not only sheerly speculative, but is undermined by the fact of the survival of members of the species that did not evolve.  Consequently, for the general public, the Survival Principle predominates, especially because the 'survival of the fittest' thesis, which entails neither mutation nor increase in complexity, i. e. the cardinal characteristics of evolutionary transformation, is probably the most common understanding of the theory.  Accordingly, insofar as Human extraterrestrial travel is attributed to 'evolution', it is most typically conceived as a survival strategy, an adaptation in reaction to an environment that is becoming increasingly uninhabitable due to industrial causes.  But, that concept does not take into the consideration the possibility that the human drive to transcend terrestriality long precedes the ruination of it, perhaps as encoded into the species from the outset.  That interpretation makes the Space Age more of an adventure and less desperation.