And so, what kind of insurance policy do you take out on your planet?
Let’s say you’re worried about the future of mankind on Earth. There’s too many selfish types who won’t reduce or reuse (let alone recycle), and they’re running our planet to her grave. Well, if you listen to Stephen
Hawking (you know him, the world-famous physicist who works out of a wheelchair and talks with the synthetic voice due to ALS – Lou Gehrig’s Disease), you hedge your bets: colonize the Moon and Mars.
From NewScientist Space:
Stephen Hawking called for a massive investment in establishing colonies on the Moon and Mars in a lecture in honour of NASA’s 50th anniversary. He argued that the world should devote about 10 times as much as NASA’s current budget – or 0.25% of the world’s financial resources – to space.
The renowned University of Cambridge physicist has previously spoken in favour of colonising space as an insurance policy against the possibility of humanity being wiped out by catastrophes like nuclear war and climate change. He argues that humanity should eventually expand to other solar systems.
But in a speech in Washington, DC, US, delivered in honour of NASA’s 50th anniversary in 2008, Hawking focused on near-term possibilities, backing the space agency’s goals of returning astronauts to the Moon by 2020 and sending humans to Mars soon after that.
Hawking is one of those once-in-a-lifetime kinds of people; brilliant and a visionary. He is now totally paralyzed from his disease, and yet remains productive in the fields of theoretical cosmology and quantum gravity. If you’re interested in questions about the age of the universe or the big bang, then click on that first link.
