I think if you are talking at that time scale, the imperative for humanity in particular to be the one to make that advancement is just anthro vanity. The history of humanity is such a relatively brief thing on the cosmic scale you are talking about, and yet in our brief time we have screwed things up massively for ourselves. But not necessarily for future species and human-like life.

Its ok if we don't make it guys, there was species before us, and there will be some after us. The universe is vast. We are probably not even that special, but we can do our best and enjoy life and try to minimize the suffering that will certainly happen from our mistakes... to want to "win" anything beyond that will just cause more suffering.

Its ok to admit we messed up, we couldn't know at the time that a global capitalism predicated on an unlimited nature would not end up great, the timeline of scientific discovery was not in out favor there. On all accounts we are most likely too late, its not anyone in particulars fault, its ok.

Time is very vast, that can scare you or humble you.