> Encapsulating and packaging our civilisation also means creating a backup of our knowledge,
You don't need to go to space to do that. It is much, much easier to build such "backups" on Earth, in the form of underground bunkers or something. As a matter of fact, such facilities already exist, for instance the Svalbard Global Seed Vault[1], or any of the secret bunkers built during cold war[2]. Survivalism is a terrible reason for colonizing space, for space is a very hostile environment in the first place, so it makes very little sense to consider it as a place to rely on for survival.
Coming from an Engineering background we should all know that building something that actually works as a test case is the only way to know for sure for complex systems. Civilisation being the most complex system we have, I don't think that any group of individuals can account for everything that is needed in order to rebuild it. Lots of the underlying problems will only surface once a working 'civilization 2' is being attempted.
You don't need to go to space to do that. It is much, much easier to build such "backups" on Earth, in the form of underground bunkers or something. As a matter of fact, such facilities already exist, for instance the Svalbard Global Seed Vault[1], or any of the secret bunkers built during cold war[2]. Survivalism is a terrible reason for colonizing space, for space is a very hostile environment in the first place, so it makes very little sense to consider it as a place to rely on for survival.
1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svalbard_Global_Seed_Vault
2: http://io9.com/the-secret-world-of-underground-bunkers-51160...