Stephen Hawking Renews Call to Colonize Space

Photos and sound clips available at: http://www.aip.org/isns/reports/2008/011.html

April 23, 2008
By Jason Socrates Bardi
ISNS Contributor

Spreading out into space would have an even greater effect than Christopher Columbus' 1492 voyage, Hawking told an invitation-only crowd packed into a modern lecture hall on the campus of George Washington University on Monday.

"It will completely change the future of the human race and may determine whether we have any future at all," Hawking said through his computer to the several hundred people in attendance. He suffers from the motor neuron disease ALS and must communicate through a device attached to his wheelchair. "Isn't our future worth a quarter of a percent?"

Hawking delivered the lecture with his daughter Lucy, with whom he has recently written two children's books on space. The children's books are aimed at interesting the next generation in science, a goal that dovetails with his call to colonize space. "We live in a society that is increasingly governed by science and technology yet fewer and fewer young people want to go into science," Hawking said. "A new manned space flight program would do a lot to restore public enthusiasm for space and for science generally."

Not everyone in the scientific community is as enthusiastic as Hawking about spending considerable sums on the human colonization of space. Some question whether large increases in science funding might not be better spent on programs here on Earth or on unmanned space missions, which are generally much less expensive and accomplish more scientifically.

Hawking countered these arguments in his lecture by stating that colonizing space is as much about survival as it is about science. "If one is considering the future of the human race, we have to go there ourselves," he said.

He named the moon and Mars are the most suitable sites for colonization in our solar system, adding that the immediate goal of a new space flight program should be to establish a moon base in the next few decades and to land humans on Mars by mid-century. Sending people to explore the moons of Jupiter and Saturn should be possible in the next few hundred years, he claims.

Some scientists remain unconvinced that extraterrestrial colonization is feasible. All the destinations in our solar system, even the nearby ones, have their problems. Venus is too hot. The Moon lacks an atmosphere. Mars is too cool and its atmosphere too thin.

"If the idea is to colonize the planets to give us more living room, then I would first colonize Antarctica," said University of Texas Physicist Steven Weinberg in reaction to Hawking's call. "Compared to the conditions on Mars or the moons of the outer planets, Antarctica is heaven."

What about planets beyond our solar system? Astronomers have now identified about 300 "extrasolar" planets, though so far none of these are Earth-like in the sense that they orbit the sun in a similar orbit and show evidence of water, oxygen, and the other conditions that support life on our planet.

According to planetary physicist Sara Seager at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, it is only a matter of time before we discover another Earth-like planet in the Milky Way. Last week, Seager discussed the likelihood of finding an Earth-like planet with a large crowd at the American Physical Society meeting in St. Louis. "Do I expect to find another Earth in my lifetime?" Seager asked. "Yes, but I expect to live a very long time."

Hawking is the first to admit that we can't envision visiting extrasolar planets with current technology, and he concluded his lecture Monday by stating that we should make interstellar travel a long-term aim. "The human race has existed as a separate species for about two million years," he concluded. "If the human race is to continue for another million years, we will have to boldly go where no one has gone before."

Jason Socrates Bardi is a senior science writer for the Inside Science News Service.

***This story is provided free for media use by the Inside Science News Service, which is supported by the American Institute of Physics, a not-for-profit publisher of scientific journals. Please credit ISNS. Contact: Jim Dawson, news editor, at jdawson@aip.org.