Posted on 04/21/2008 11:18:04 PM PDT by LibWhacker
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.
The Moon is a good place to start because it is "close by and relatively easy to reach", Hawking said. "The Moon could be a base for travel to the rest of the solar system," he added. Mars would be "the obvious next target", with its abundant supplies of frozen water, and the tantalising possibility that life may have been present there in the past.
Some space experts have recently called for NASA to send astronauts to a near-Earth asteroid instead of the Moon as a next step.
Hawking did not mention the idea, but said that any long-term site for a human base should have a significant gravity field. That's because long missions in microgravity lead to health issues such as bone loss.
(Excerpt) Read more at space.newscientist.com ...
LLS
We've got what's left of a shuttle fleet that can't launch in rain and can be destroyed by falling insulation.
Some progress.
Sorry, but it’s a dumb idea. Humans are not adapted to space flight or to life on a world with different gravity and other conditions. Will cost far too much money. A better plan is to put demented scientists out to pasture and to fix up this planet.
“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.”
Unless the moon or mars can be made self sufficient, it will need to be supplied from earth. Food, water, air, etc. If Earth dies, people on the moon die also.
Hawking may be a genius but he is also a crackpot who has stated that global warming threatens to make the earth as hot as venus.
Agree. When I watched Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon in 1969 I profoundly believed that I would see a permanent colony on the moon and a manned landing on Mars in my life-time. Alas, now it's almost 40 years later and I no longer believe I am going to see either happen in my lifetime.
I know the disappointment you must feel. I'm still waiting for the flying cars........
I am shocked, SHOCKED I tell you! /scarcasmoff
Oh, I think the moon is totally safe from “climate” change, considering it doesn’t have one. Asteroids, however, are a point well made.
While your condemnation of his personal life is simply fascinating, we’d all love to hear just what bearing the status of his marriage(s) has to do with his credibility in the scientific arena.
Oh I completely agree, but I don’t think we actually will. We have the technology to do lots we won’t.
Earth to Hawking ...global warming is happening on Mars.
“I know the disappointment you must feel. I’m still waiting for the flying cars........”
Here you go Hot Tabasco,
Check out this website; http://www.fiddlersgreen.net/AC/aircraft/Aerocar/info/info.htm
Per the article, the first AeroCar was sold to a Portland, Oregon radio station in 1961 to use for traffic reporting...
I am curious of your "can't do" attitude. And, more importantly, I hope you are the exception and not the rule. Had the founding fathers been of like mind, we'd still be a British colony. And if our current batch of politicians remain that way, you can be dead certain, DEAD certain, that China and/or Russia will be there as soon as they can. "Space" is the last frontier. It has *infinite* resources. And it is the ultimate in military strength.
The United States will not be the country who does it.
But that wouldn’t happen. They would send an ACLU lawyer and an EPA analysis up there first.
True.
LLS
“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.”
I never understood why atheists (and Hawking is arguably one) see any value, let alone so much value, in the perpetuation of the human race.
If the creation of the human race was a random, meaningless, cosmic accident, then the extinction of the human race would be an equally random, meaningless, cosmic accident. No?
It’s because they have faith, not in an all powerful God, but in the rational mind. A super-advanced intelligence will behave rationally and intelligently, they believe, probably in almost every situation — and that’s good.
Personally, I’m less certain that it’s good. A super-advanced civilization that wanted the Earth, for instance, might sterilize it first before moving in and not lose a minute’s sleep over it. In other words, imo, there seems to be a disconnect between intelligence and morality without the presence of God in one’s life.
That said, I want to see us expand into space and establish colonies on every planet we can get to.
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