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Hawking Gives Humans 1,000 Years to Escape Earth
VOA ^ | 4/11/13

Posted on 04/12/2013 8:55:26 AM PDT by LibWhacker

Famed astrophysicist Stephen Hawking warns that humans will need to go beyond the planet Earth if they are to survive as a species.

“We must continue to go into space for humanity,” Hawking told a gathering this week in Los Angeles, California. “We won’t survive another 1,000 years without escaping our fragile planet.”

Hawking, 71, has long been a proponent of space exploration.

Speaking at a 2008 ceremony marking the 50th anniversary of the U.S. space agency, NASA, Hawking called for a new era in human space exploration, comparable, he said, to the European voyages to the New World more than 500 years ago.

“Spreading out into space will have an even greater effect," Hawking said. "It will completely change the future of the human race and maybe determine whether we have any future at all.”

(Excerpt) Read more at voanews.com ...


TOPICS: Science; Society
KEYWORDS: california; earth; escape; hawking; humans; losangeles; stephenhawking; wearealldoomed; xplanets
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To: LibWhacker
Hawking Gives Humans 1,000 Years to Escape Earth

Don't put it off - it will be here before you know it.

21 posted on 04/12/2013 9:20:07 AM PDT by GreenHornet
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To: Vaquero

There are better things to hold against her.


22 posted on 04/12/2013 9:20:32 AM PDT by EEGator
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To: LibWhacker

At the rate we are going, we won’t survive the current administration...


23 posted on 04/12/2013 9:21:32 AM PDT by kosciusko51 (Enough of "Who is John Galt?" Who is Patrick Henry?)
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To: LibWhacker

I don’t think we’ll die out within a thousand years but I do think we’ll find a means for interstellar flight within that time frame.

Gonna be a real shock to the people who leave on a sleep ship to arrive thousands of years later and discover humans already there making daily commutes back and forth between earth and Alpha C.


24 posted on 04/12/2013 9:21:36 AM PDT by cripplecreek (REMEMBER THE RIVER RAISIN!)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

“The world survived for billions of years before Steve came along, and it will be around for billions of years after.”

Absolutely true. Hawking is concerned about the state of us humans, though, whether we’ll be here and/or have a civilization.

Ice Age, comet strike, new virus, old politics, war, you name it, Earth is not necessarily a friendly place to live. Look at all the underwater ruins in the Mediterranean, and consider the now-drowned Doggerland north of England, that was a nice place for people to live. The deep valley between Long Island and the mainland is now underwater. The Chesapeake Bay is an old asteroid strike crater...


25 posted on 04/12/2013 9:21:41 AM PDT by DBrow
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To: LibWhacker

Hawking has gone off the deep end. Stick to physics, Steve.


26 posted on 04/12/2013 9:22:12 AM PDT by beethovenfan (If Islam is the solution, the "problem" must be freedom.)
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To: DBrow
Absolutely true. Hawking is concerned about the state of us humans, though, whether we’ll be here and/or have a civilization.

I can guarantee you that human beings like us will not be here in a billion years.

You have heard of "evolution," right?

27 posted on 04/12/2013 9:24:41 AM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum ("Deficit spending is simply a scheme for the confiscation of wealth." --Alan Greenspan)
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To: rarestia

Agree 100%.


28 posted on 04/12/2013 9:24:46 AM PDT by John W (Viva Cristo Rey!)
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To: LibWhacker

29 posted on 04/12/2013 9:25:15 AM PDT by dfwgator
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

I’m thinking of the near term, the next 10,000 years.


30 posted on 04/12/2013 9:26:36 AM PDT by DBrow
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Hawkins is an atheist,yes?

OH Mr. Hawkin you who said,’Heaven is a fairy story for people afraid of the dark.”now you say,we need to escape earth? Have you not read that mighty men of renown millenia ago once wrote,
“I lift up my eyes to the mountains—
where does my help come from?
My help comes from the Lord,
the Maker of heaven and earth.


31 posted on 04/12/2013 9:26:40 AM PDT by Sophia777
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To: LibWhacker

Already missed the window, genius.

At this point, sending robotic and remote controlled devices is so much cheaper and “fair”, that’s the best we’ll do. We can’t send those who are capable, because that would be discriminatory. We can’t send a “representative” person, because they would fail. So we’ll send robots.

When the Elite became fodder for the mediocre, all hope was lost.


32 posted on 04/12/2013 9:26:40 AM PDT by Born to Conserve
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To: LibWhacker

I give him maybe ten more years before he goes on to the eternal barbecue.


33 posted on 04/12/2013 9:28:21 AM PDT by MIchaelTArchangel (Have a wonderful day!)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

Why are you attacking me? If the population continues to grow, and there is no reason to think it won’t, there WILL come a time when there will be more humans than the planet can support. Resources WILL run out.

And no, I do not believe in evolution. And if I did, I would simply point out that evolution takes place slowly. Much slower than 1000 years.


34 posted on 04/12/2013 9:28:26 AM PDT by Blood of Tyrants (The founding fathers didn't form this country by compromising.)
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To: GrandJediMasterYoda
Oh you mean the planet that has been around for "B" for billions of years throughout meteor strikes, massive volcanoes, hurricanes, typhoons, nukes, and Justin Beiber yet is still around like a bunny on a warm spring day? Maybe the Professor can define for me the word "fragile" because if the earth is "fragile" I'd hate to see what his definition of "tough' is.

You nailed it. Hawking is another example of how someone can be a genius in one field, but a total moron outside of it.

35 posted on 04/12/2013 9:28:43 AM PDT by Moonman62 (The US has become a government with a country, rather than a country with a government.)
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To: dfwgator

But there are planets with stuffing mines that do a bang up business around thanksgiving.

See South Park.


36 posted on 04/12/2013 9:30:09 AM PDT by Vaquero (Don't pick a fight with an old guy. If he is too old to fight, he'll just kill you.)
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To: EEGator

Nah, you’ll get fired due to a scandal and Obama will take over.

She’s bad juju.

you need to meet the Vulcan’s T’Pal


37 posted on 04/12/2013 9:31:09 AM PDT by hattend (Firearms and ammunition...the only growing industries under the Obama regime.)
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To: E. Pluribus Unum

A large and successful population isn’t going to change much due to evolution. I don’t see much selective pressure weeding out all but a few variations currently. Over the next few thousand years perhaps, but it is likely any changes will be molecular not morphological.


38 posted on 04/12/2013 9:32:34 AM PDT by allmendream (Tea Party did not send GOP to D.C. to negotiate the terms of our surrender to socialism)
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To: LibWhacker

1000 years? Interesting. That’s God’s plan exactly.


39 posted on 04/12/2013 9:33:51 AM PDT by wolfman
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To: Vaquero

The American west was a harsh mistress. The American east coast was a harsh mistress to the first founders here. Greenland was a harsh mistress to the Nordic explorers who landed there. We adapt as people, as a species, in order to keep the best of us alive and prospering and the worst of us in the dustbin of history.


40 posted on 04/12/2013 9:34:18 AM PDT by rarestia (It's time to water the Tree of Liberty.)
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