Get us off this planet, says Hawking - April 22, 2008
Steven Hawking has called for a new focus on space exploration to ensure a future for humanity.
At a speech marking 50 years of Nasa he compared the current situation to Europe before America was discovered (press notice). “Spreading out into space will have an even greater effect. It will completely change the future of the human race and maybe determine whether we have any future at all,” AFP quotes him saying.
“If the human race is to continue for another million years, we will probably have to go where nobody has gone before,” he added, according to ABC.
The speech also covered Hawking’s well documented belief in extra-terrestrial life (see his previous lecture for more on this).
Hawking brushed aside worries over the cost of space exploration, saying, “There will be those who will argue that it would be better to spend our money solving the problems of this planet, like climate change and pollution, rather than possibly wasting it on a fruitless search for a new planet. But we can do that and still spare a quarter of a percent of world GDP for space. Isn’t our future worth a quarter of a percent?” (ABC.)
This is the same theme Hawking explores with his daughter Lucy in their recent children’s book, “George’s secret key to the Universe”, in which a little boy comes to the conclusion that the best way to address climate change is to both try to make a difference on our own planet, and to also go off in search of a new home for humanity.
This bring us to a touchy subject – why do we in the media pay attention to speeches such as this?
Hawking is undoubtedly an inspiring man and a brilliant scientist. But what does he really know about space exploration? More than me almost certainly. But more than many of those those working at Nasa and ESA? I doubt it.
This is another example of misplaced attention. When Hawking has something to say about cosmology I’m all ears, but I’d rather have experts stick to their topics of knowledge.
Equally can we really afford to give up a quarter of a percent of our GDP to explore space? The CIA world fact book puts world GDP at $65,820,000,000,000.
So that’s $165,000,000,000 for space exploration? The opportunity cost there would seem far too high to me, given all the problems we have on Earth at the moment.
Comments
Your comments indicate that you are making decisions based on your own personal thinking system. Space exploration, including the resulting research data could make or break our planet. Also, what we are going thru on Earth is probably just part of cyclical norms throughout the long history of glacial and interglacial periods.
(There have been about 20 complete glacial cycles in the last 3 million years, alone.)
There is simply too much perception that what is bad for man, must be bad for the planet. if the warming floods some seacoasts, is it bad for the Earth?
No, just for some of man's property.
Posted by: Allen | April 22, 2008 05:49 PM
It's fun to look at the "big picture", and "someday over the rainbow", but talk of going into space as a savior to humanity is so silly to me - it's like an 8 year old running away from home to the local park. He'll be back home for supper to be sure. Humanity is clever, but every attempt to pretend we can escape our problems by "running away" from them, just tells me once again, we're not ready yet.
Posted by: Tom Ruen | April 24, 2008 02:34 AM
The remotest habited place on Earth is the tiny island of Rapa Nui also known as Easter Island. When the Polynesians first settled it around 500 AD it was a lush island filled with gigantic trees. At its heyday there were about 10,000 inhabitants on the island. This was unsustainable and wars and ecological desecration decimated the population. When the Europeans (Dutch) visited them in 1722 there just a few hundred and not a tree grew there.
In 1200 years of isolation the Islanders forgot that they came from somewhere else and thought they were the only people on Earth.
Rapa Nui is a microcosm of the Earth.
We have similarly forgotten that our Earth, though it may seem vast, is finite and has finite resources. That we are in fact a tiny island floating in the great ocean of space. If man has to survive we have to colonise our solar system, nearby solar systems, the milky way.
"Hawking .. what does he really know about space exploration? .. more than many of those.. working at Nasa and ESA? I doubt it."
You are missing the point. Some in NASA may know more than him about technicalities of spaceships, but few may share his vision and none could his match his clarity of thought and reasoning.
He is a visionary like Asimov and others. It was George Bernard Shaw who said:
You see things; and you say, "Why?"
But I dream things that never were; and I say, "Why not?"
Posted by: Richard Dawson | April 24, 2008 12:12 PM
Not to be picky, but it's "NASA", not "Nasa".
OK, so that .25% is $165 billion. But it's still only .25%, and leaves $65,655 trillion available.
I heard a talk the other day, given by a UCLA physics and astronomy prof, during which he complained bitterly that so much money was being spent over the Iraq war, and so little going to his pet project - which, by the way, was manned space exploration.
Each group has its own pet projects, and all are upset that their project isn't getting enough money.
Allen and Richard get it. We will leave Earth (as we will someday) not to escape problems, but to leave the nest. As people like Magellan and Columbus and Marco Polo and others did.
We pay attention to Hawking for the same reason we paid attention to Arthur C. Clarke, Robert Heinlein, Isaac Asimov, and a handful of others to had the ability to look beyond the horizon (of both space and time), and ask "What next?".
Hawking is a great example of what the human spirit is capable of. He's trapped in a useless body, but with a mind that knows no limits.
Posted by: ZZMike | April 24, 2008 08:49 PM
Mr. Cressey, you are more than welcome to stay on the planet once everyone else goes off to explore. We'll send you a postcard and let you know what you're missing - not that you'll care of course, right?
Posted by: Mark F | May 11, 2008 02:49 AM