Physicists probe deep space, back and forward through billions of years of exciting cosmic history, light-years across black holes and ancient galaxies, collecting endless data, scientific, mystical and mythical. If there was ever anybody out there, they have vanished without a trace.

“Where is everybody?” asked Nobel physicist Enrico Fermi. Our human race has only been around for maybe two million years, equivalent to a fraction of a second in cosmic time. Nobody’s out there, anywhere. We send coded messages to aliens on other planets. But no returns.

Problem? Maybe. But also what a fabulous opportunity.

Yes, for human civilization, our greatest problem, our greatest challenge and by far, our most exciting opportunity has been defined by astrophysicists. It’s not drones delivering UPS packages or Amazon books ... not a costly brief trip into weightlessness on Musk’s SpaceX or Branson’s Virgin Galactic ... nor is it Planetary Resources potentially lucrative private equity venture into asteroid mining.

Physicists have identified space as the greatest opportunity for our highly evolved capitalist civilization. The scientific vision of some of the world’s leading astrophysicists equally challenge environmental activists like Bill McKibben’s 350.org and the Grantham Research Institute, and the capitalist masters of Big Oil and the 67 billionaires who already own half the world’s assets, as well as Silicon Valley’s innovation genius machine.

If astrophysicists are right, time is urgent, we have no choice. We must solve the mystery of “space, the final frontier,” fast. Here’s how four of the world’s greatest physicists see great opportunities and why we must act to avoid having the future of human civilization on Earth simply repeating past cycles on billions of universes, stars and planets over billions of years since time began. Listen:

Why no civilizations survived? Nobel Physicist Enrico Fermi, one of the men called the “father of the atomic bomb,” is also known for the Fermi Paradox, the infinite gap between a belief that there must be other civilizations somewhere out there in the billions and billions of galaxies versus a total lack of evidence. “Where is everybody” Fermi asked. Why “no signs of intelligence life in the universe?”

Nobel Physicist Enrico Fermi, one of the men called the “father of the atomic bomb,” is also known for the Fermi Paradox, the infinite gap between a belief that there must be other civilizations somewhere out there in the billions and billions of galaxies versus a total lack of evidence. “Where is everybody” Fermi asked. Why “no signs of intelligence life in the universe?” Can humans create a sustainable planet? Fermi’s Paradox prompted astrophysicist Adam Frank to add rhetorically: “Do all planets hit a sustainability bottleneck and none ever make it to other side?” Why did he ask? Because “civilization inevitably leads to catastrophic planetary change,” and there’s nothing we can do about it. Maybe our great innovation minds and capital resources in Silicon Valley and worldwide can lead the way, solve this mystery.

Fermi’s Paradox prompted astrophysicist Adam Frank to add rhetorically: “Do all planets hit a sustainability bottleneck and none ever make it to other side?” Why did he ask? Because “civilization inevitably leads to catastrophic planetary change,” and there’s nothing we can do about it. Maybe our great innovation minds and capital resources in Silicon Valley and worldwide can lead the way, solve this mystery. Or is human extinction dead ahead? Writing in an American Scholar, Nobel physicist Robert Laughlin warns that Planet “Earth doesn’t care if you drive a hybrid!” Or recycle, eat organic food, or live in a green house powered by solar energy, or join Greenpeace, fight Exxon Mobil to save natural resources under the Arctic. Since the Big Bang 14 billion years ago, Earth has been operating on its own timetable, doesn’t even care if you pollute the atmosphere with CO2. Why? Every now and then Earth just wipes the planet clean, either a new ice age or burning hell. Physicists are now certain human behavior is the cause of the “Sixth Great Species Extinction.”

Writing in an American Scholar, Nobel physicist Robert Laughlin warns that Planet “Earth doesn’t care if you drive a hybrid!” Or recycle, eat organic food, or live in a green house powered by solar energy, or join Greenpeace, fight Exxon Mobil to save natural resources under the Arctic. Since the Big Bang 14 billion years ago, Earth has been operating on its own timetable, doesn’t even care if you pollute the atmosphere with CO2. Why? Every now and then Earth just wipes the planet clean, either a new ice age or burning hell. Physicists are now certain human behavior is the cause of the “Sixth Great Species Extinction.” Build a new civilization in space? Physicist Steven Hawking sees a catastrophic ending for Planet Earth in the not-too-distance future. As a result, “the long-term future of the human race must be in space,” says Hawking. So it’s important that we start planning for a new life after Planet Earth: “It will be difficult enough to avoid disaster on Planet Earth in the next hundred years, let alone the next thousand,” before the great extinction wipes out our capitalist explorers and innovators can find a new home for human civilization.

MIT Technology Review’s editor-in-chief Jason Pontin also anticipated our dilemma in his provocative article, “Why We Can’t Solve Big Problems,” facing the issues defined by great minds like Fermi, Frank, Laughlin and Hawking.

Polin’s answer: Too many limitations, like the fact that our problems are often misdiagnosed. They’re not technological, but rather constrained by economics (like the estimated $60 trillion cost of stopping global warming in a $75 trillion GDP world). Or the fact that there are bigger public-policy demands here on Earth (the seemingly insurmountable issues of poverty, inequality and human rights). Or the endless divisive clashes of domestic and international political ideologies, with little prospect of compromise.

Capitalist’s Dilemma: Is short-term investing killing long-term survival?

That gets us to the core underlying problem: Clayton Christensen, one of the world’s brilliant minds and the foremost authority on capitalism and the new science of “disruptive innovation,” believes capitalism is broken. Needs a fix. And last year he made clear the solution in his article, “The Capitalist Dilemma,” in the Harvard Business Review. Listen closely:

“Sixty months after the 2008 recession ended, the economy was still sputtering, producing disappointing growth and job numbers. Corporations seemed stuck: Despite low interest rates, they were sitting on massive piles of cash and failing to invest in new initiatives.” The core issue is “that investments in different types of innovation have different effects on growth but are all evaluated using the same (flawed) metrics,” namely short-term investment criteria like closing prices, quarterly earnings, annual bonuses, which results in capitalism’s failure to invest in the big long-term opportunities. Christensen asks:

“Performance-improving innovations, which replace old products with better models, and ‘efficiency innovations,’ which lower costs, don’t produce many jobs.” In fact, “these efficiency innovations eliminate” jobs and result in slow growth.

In addition, “market-creating innovations, which transform products so radically they create a new class of consumer, do generate jobs for their originators and for the economy. But the assessment metrics that financial market and companies use always show efficiency and performance-improving innovations to be better opportunities” than opportunities that solve the longer-term.

“The Capitalist’s Dilemma: Doing the right thing for long-term prosperity,” as well as the sustainability of the planet and the long-term survival of human civilization “is the wrong thing for investors, according to the tools that guide investments.” As a result, Wall Street, Silicon Valley and the entire American capitalist machine is excessively focused on stuff like closing prices, quarterly earnings, annual bonuses making it impossible to focus on the long-term solutions necessary to take advantage of the opportunities in the problems, challenges and opportunities in the questions raised by astrophysicists Fermi, Frank, Laughlin and Hawking.

And unless we can solve this Capitalist’s Dilemma that Christensen clearly articulates — by shifting our economic focus from the short-term to the long term — humans will have trouble taking advantage of opportunities inherent in the four questions raised by our leading astrophysicists: Can human civilization on Earth be the first to survive? How can we create a sustainable planet? Is the extinction of our species a foregone conclusion?

And do we have enough capital, innovative talent, and time, to relocate billions of humans in space, somewhere out there? Or maybe enough time just to relocate a few human survivors? Or is it too late? Is civilization really doomed, inevitably leading to “catastrophic planetary change, and there’s nothing we can do about it?”

Is all this what’s behind Fermi’s ultimate question: “Where is everybody? Why are there no signs of intelligence life in the universe?”