Human Survival Depends On Space Exploration, Says Hawking 438
thomst writes "The Winnipeg Free Press posts a story by Cassandra Szklarski of the Canadian Press about an email interview with Stephen Hawking in which the astrophysicist and geek hero opines, 'Our only chance of long-term survival is not to remain lurking on planet Earth, but to spread out into space.' The story also covers the upcoming Canadian debut of Hawking's new TV series 'Brave New World With Stephen Hawking,' and his excitement about ongoing work at the Perimeter Institute in Waterloo, Ont. investigating quantum theory and gravity."
Don't be silly (Score:4, Funny)
We're all going to become happy fluffy hippies and live a sustainable lifestyle in little teepees where we'll end all conflict by singing happy songs and shit.
Re:Space ninjas (Score:5, Funny)
Well, if he would just get off of his butt and work a bit harder, maybe he can figure out this gravity nonsense and come up with a way to work around it.
Then we can talk about getting off this rock.
Ball's in your court, Stevie.
Re:Another only chance of long-term survival . . . (Score:5, Funny)
Keeping a Dr. Strangelove quote prepared and ready to copy paste, there has to be some kind of geek badge for that.
Re:Space ninjas (Score:3, Funny)
Ow. That was kind of low...
Not as low as he would fall if he tried to get up.
Re:Genesis (Score:4, Funny)
No idea, I'm not a huge Phil Collins fan.
Re:We can mine without colonization (Score:5, Funny)
if Bill Gates finishes designing his reactor
This may be the most terrifying phrase I've ever read on Slashdot ;^)
Re:This Just In (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Our solar system ... (Score:5, Funny)
Probably you leave the earthquake and tsunami generators behind, problem solved.
Re:What constitutes "survival"? (Score:3, Funny)
Is it just the transmission of DNA?
Then if it is, then transmitting our DNA via high powered radio telescopes would be far cheaper than a space program. Next would be including DNA samples on anything leaving the solar system (pioneer, voyager, new horizon).
I
I tried doing that when I worked at NASA but I got fired when someone saw me.
It seems like a week since Ceres (Score:4, Funny)
The launch was a rush. That railgun they drilled through the planetoid accelerated me at 50G, or 490m/s/s. With only 487km of railgun it was over in just a few seconds and I was off to the stars. It's cold out here and dark, with not much to do as I sleep almost all of the time. They keep pushing. The high-energy lasers in orbit around Venus still fluff my solar sail and deliver power so I don't have to activate my nuclear engine. I'm supposed to be seeing some time dilation at this point, but really, not so much that it can't be accounted for.
I understand launching so much mass shifted the orbit of the planetoid significantly, but was timed to do so in a way that moved it into a more convenient orbit around the sun. Not that they fill me in on the details.
They laid my way with resupply years before of course. I'll be docking with one of those probes soon to boost my xenon and hydrogen - that's why I'm awake to make this log. I've five of these resupplies to do, and this next one is the fourth. I'm halfway to my destination, and still have all of this resupply inventory. It's for deceleration, and I may not need any of it if the L2 solar sails work to spec. I'm glad for the backup plan because we all know how low bidder contracts kill.
It's been 40 years, and it feels like a week.
There's not much to do out here except wonder if tech innovations will have people stopping by to pick me up on their way to the stars with new drive tech. It's nice that my mental donor wasn't too introspective - some replayed vids and a little virtual dolphin flogging and we're ready for sleep again. That will be handy when we get to Tau Ceti if we've got to do some terraforming before it's fit for men. That could take a few million years even with my well-designed spore toolkit. Sleep will be a blessing.
Twenty years and it seems like a week. Frankly I'm glad they vary my clock at need. I wonder what meat people would feel like by turnaround. Perhaps it's best not to go there. It's not like they could survive the launch acceleration anyway.
They said this personality is rated for 18 months of subjective time before it's overcome by a psychotic desire to kill the manipulative bitch that made me volunteer for this program. That may have been optimistic.
End log.