At the Oxford University Union, renowned theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking has warned humanity that we probably will not survive another 1,000 years on Earth. He explained that we need to set up colonies elsewhere in the solar system.
Hawking has spoken a lot about inexistence of black holes, risks of artificial intelligence, that robots could push unemployment, the risk of things like nuclear war, warning scientists to stop trying to contact aliens and lot more. But now, he said, “We must also continue to go into space for the future of humanity. I don’t think we will survive another 1,000 years without escaping beyond our fragile planet.”
He continued, “Although the chance of a disaster to planet Earth in a given year may be quite low, it adds up over time, and becomes a near certainty in the next 1,000 to 10,000 years. By that time, we should have spread out into space, and to other stars, so a disaster on Earth would not mean the end of the human race.”
NASA is already exploring space. The Kepler spacecraft launched in 2009 with a mission to discover planets in or near the habitable zone that might be able to sustain human life. Meanwhile, Space X founder Elon Musk has big plans to have boots on Mars by the year 2026.
