Hawking says "Abandon Earth or Face Extinction"

[The Franchise]

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/...ephen-hawking/

Abandon Earth or Face Extinction, Stephen Hawking Warns -- Again

It's time to abandon Earth, warned the world's most famous theoretical physicist.

In an interview with website Big Think, Stephen Hawking warned that the long-term future of the planet is in outer space.

"It will be difficult enough to avoid disaster on planet Earth in the next hundred years, let alone the next thousand, or million. The human race shouldn't have all its eggs in one basket, or on one planet," he said.

"I see great dangers for the human race," Hawking said. "There have been a number of times in the past when its survival has been a question of touch and go. The Cuban missile crisis in 1963 was one of these. The frequency of such occasions is likely to increase in the future."

"But I'm an optimist. If we can avoid disaster for the next two centuries, our species should be safe, as we spread into space," he said.

That said, getting to another planet will prove a challenge, not to mention colonizing it for humanity. University of Michigan astrophysicist Katherine Freese told Big Think that "the nearest star [to Earth] is Proxima Centauri which is 4.2 light years away. That means that, if you were traveling at the speed of light the whole time, it would take 4.2 years to get there" -- or about 50,000 years using current rocket science.

Still, we need to act and act fast, Hawking stated. "It will be difficult enough to avoid disaster in the next hundred years, let alone the next thousand or million. Our only chance of long-term survival is not to remain inward looking on planet Earth but to spread out into space. We have made remarkable progress in the last hundred years. But if we want to continue beyond the next hundred years, our future is in space."

This is not the first time Hawking has warned of impending planetary doom. In 2006, the physicist warned that Earth was at an ever increasing risk of being wiped out. And lately, Hawking has become quite outspoken.

In April, he warned of the dangers of communicating with aliens, telling the Discovery Channel that extra-terrestrials are almost certain to exist -- and humanity should avoid contact with them at all cost.

“To my mathematical brain, the numbers alone make thinking about aliens perfectly rational,” he said. “The real challenge is to work out what aliens might actually be like.”

The answer, he suggests, is that most of alien life will be the equivalent of microbes or simple animals -- the sort of life that has dominated Earth for most of its history -- and they could pose a serious threat to us.

In May Hawking said he believed humans could travel millions of years into the future and repopulate their devastated planet. If spaceships are built that can fly faster than the speed of light, a day on board would be equivalent to a year on Earth. That's because -- according to Einstein -- as objects accelerate through space, time slows down around them.

“Time travel was once considered scientific heresy, and I used to avoid talking about it for fear of being labelled a crank," he said in Stephen Hawking's Universe.

"These days I’m not so cautious.”

[Brock]

We're definitely headed for Uranus

[ChiefaRoo]

Originally Posted by MOhillbilly

humans would be doing beyond good. The chances of this happening are 0%.

500 years and we'll be all over the solar system.

[BWillie]

I need to send my dad who is younger than me back in time to screw my mother before I was born so I can exist for I am the leader of the resistance or else we are all doomed

[Hammock Parties]

Zefram Cochrane invents warp drive in 2063. We're good.

I just hope we can get wifi out that far...I need my Chiefsplanet on other planets.

[jAZ]

Originally Posted by blaise

He said "our only chance at long term survival" was to find other places to live. The fact is that you would need to abandon earth to do that. Unless you know of some specific time frame attached to the word "abandon" I'd say, yes you're over reacting a bit. So, if he said we need to leave tomorrow it would be abandoning, but in a thousand years it's not? When exactly does the definition of abandon kick in?

No, he's saying that we will want to populate other planets in order to ensure the survival the the species. He doesn't remotely say that everyone on earth needs to be moved from the planet. In fact, it's logistically stupid to try to move the existing population. You move the seeds for a new one population and let them procreate a new population.

That's not abandoning anything. That's spreading out.

Humans didn't abandon Europe when Christopher Columbus made it's way to America.

[boogblaster]

Life as we know will change in next 100 years .. history shows that .. but we won't be here anyway ......

[jAZ]

Originally Posted by frazod

It sure would be nice if we survived long enough to colonize space, but who the hell's going to do it? Maybe the Chinese?

Current NASA Priorities:

1. Equal opportunity hiring
2. Making nice with the Muslims for inventing the abacus
3. Global warming

Not current NASA priorities:

A VEHICLE WE CAN ACTUALLY USE TO GET INTO OUTER ****ING SPACE

I work with some very high up folks in NASA contracting (ie, sitting in the front row at at Obama's announcement of his new NASA strategy back in the spring). I talked him the day after returning from that trip and he explained the overall strategy Obama is taking with NASA and when you hear it, it suddenly all makes perfect sense.

Obama is going to be the President who transitions our human space flight program from a government monopoly to a viable commercial one.

With NASA being the over whelming force dominating space flight in the US and basically the world, it sucks out all of the oxygen from a nacent commercial space flight industry. And the industry of "space tourism" isn't going to drive the development of a truely commercial space transportation industry. The dollars just aren't there for private industry to make a profit from it.

So we are deliberately leaving a vacuum in the industry and sending a signal to industry that they can step in and invest in the assets that will be required to have private industry lead a new age in space transportation.

[Otter]

Originally Posted by boogblaster

Life as we know will change in next 100 years .. history shows that .. but we won't be here anyway ......

I'm sorry to inform all of you but I've already made arrangements to have my head attached through cryogenics to synapses in 30 foot tall heavily armed titanium host robot body at which time I will rule with an iron fist.

Just feel fortunate most of you here are Chiefs fans and we'll have a common denominator to discuss when I'm deciding you fate.

I'm sorry, I just got done watching "Big Bang Theory".

[jAZ]

What's interesting to me about this entire discussion is something that Michiu Kaku talked about one night years ago on Art Bell. It's called the Kardashev scale.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kardashev_scale

The Kardashev scale is a method of measuring an advanced civilization's level of technological advancement. The scale is only theoretical and in terms of an actual civilization highly speculative; however, it puts energy consumption of an entire civilization in a cosmic perspective. It was first proposed in 1964 by the Soviet Russian astronomer Nikolai Kardashev. The scale has three designated categories called Type I, II, and III. These are based on the amount of usable energy a civilization has at its disposal, and the degree of space colonization. In general terms, a Type I civilization has achieved mastery of the resources of its home planet, Type II of its solar system, and Type III of its galaxy.[1]

...

The human civilization as of 2010 is currently somewhere around 0.72, with calculations showing we will reach Type I status around 2100 and Type II status around 11200.

The trick is that as we as a civilization evolve and harness greater and greater energy, we run a greater and greater risk of destroying ourselves.

We as humans have to evolves not just technologically, but also socially. Because as we have access to greater and greater sources of energy... the sources of energy we have today will become more common place.

Imagine a day (100 years from now) when an average person has access to a personal sized cold fusion energy pack that has the power of a small nuclear reactor. A devise like that can be used to destroy an entire city.

So our social systems have to evolve in such a way that we almost become a truely pacifist society. Otherwise, one population will destroy another.

The implications for the sort of organized, doctrine-based, my God is right, and your God is wrong... religions that we have in our society today are huge.

Fascinating stuff.

[Frazod]

Originally Posted by jAZ

I work with some very high up folks in NASA contracting (ie, sitting in the front row at at Obama's announcement of his new NASA strategy back in the spring). I talked him the day after returning from that trip and he explained the overall strategy Obama is taking with NASA and when you hear it, it suddenly all makes perfect sense.

Obama is going to be the President who transitions our human space flight program from a government monopoly to a viable commercial one.

With NASA being the over whelming force dominating space flight in the US and basically the world, it sucks out all of the oxygen from a nacent commercial space flight industry. And the industry of "space tourism" isn't going to drive the development of a truely commercial space transportation industry. The dollars just aren't there for private industry to make a profit from it.

So we are deliberately leaving a vacuum in the industry and sending a signal to industry that they can step in and invest in the assets that will be required to have private industry lead a new age in space transportation.

Yeah, I'll bet.

[jAZ]

Originally Posted by frazod

Yeah, I'll bet.

I don't lie.

[Frazod]

Originally Posted by jAZ

I don't lie.

You also apparently don't know when you've been lied to.

[WV]

I think he needs to lay off the medical...

[|Zach|]

Originally Posted by Otter

I'm sorry to inform all of you but I've already made arrangements to have my head attached through cryogenics to synapses in 30 foot tall heavily armed titanium host robot body at which time I will rule with an iron fist.

Just feel fortunate most of you here are Chiefs fans and we'll have a common denominator to discuss when I'm deciding you fate.

I'm sorry, I just got done watching "Big Bang Theory".

So.

Otter.

We are cool right?

[Psyko Tek]

Originally Posted by DMAC

Yes, it would be very easy to interrupt him.

you're gonna take his batteries out ain't cha?