Renowned physicist Stephen Hawking has warned that humanity needs to become a multi-planetary species within the next century in order to avoid extinction. Hawking made the prediction in a new documentary called Expedition New Earth, which is set to be released this summer as part of the BBC’s Tomorrow’s World science season. Existential risks include climate change, overpopulation, epidemics and asteroid strikes, according to Hawking. In his program, Hawking will explore the latest advances in astronomy, biology and rocket technology that will make it possible to live on Mars—from plasma rockets to human hibernation. “In this landmark series, Expedition New Earth, [Hawking] enlists engineering expert professor Danielle George and his own former student, Christophe Galfard, to find out if and how humans can reach for the stars and move to different planets,” the BBC said. “The journey shows that Prof Hawking’s ambition isn’t as fantastical as it sounds—that science fact is closer to science fiction than we ever thought.” Efforts to create a human colony on Mars are already underway, with billionaire Elon Musk hoping to establish a settlement within the next few decades through his aerospace firm SpaceX. “I don’t have a doomsday prophecy,” Musk said in 2016, “but history suggests some doomsday event will happen.” Hawking has repeatedly called for humans to colonize the moon and Mars as an insurance policy against an apocalyptic catastrophe on Earth. “The moon could be a base for travel to the rest of the solar system,” Hawking said in a 2008 lecture marking NASA’s 50th anniversary, adding that Mars would be “the obvious next target.” Hawking predicted last year that the chance of a species-ending event on Earth was a “near certainty” when all possibilities were taken into consideration. “Although the chance of 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 or 10,000 years,” Hawking told the Oxford University Union in November. “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.” Despite the dire warning, Hawking did have some positive news for the assembled students. He pointed to how our fundamental understanding of the universe has advanced in his lifetime and said it is a “glorious time to be alive and doing research into theoretical physics.” He added: “Our picture of the universe has changed a great deal in the last 50 years and I am happy if I have made a small contribution. The fact that we humans, who are ourselves mere fundamental particles of nature, have been able to come this close to understanding the laws that govern us and the universe is certainly a triumph.” http://www.newsweek.com/stephen-hawking-warns-100-years-earth-extinction-593609
Climate change - Not a problem. Even if it's real, all it means is we'll have less fish and people who live near the coastline will have to move. Hardly an extinction level event. Overpopulation - Again...not an extinction level event. The poorest people will die of hunger because there is not enough food to go around. The whole world will not die because food simply isn't going to vanish. Epidemics - Again...not an extinction level event. Even if some disease comes along and starts wiping out billions, it will pretty much only effect large towns/cities. There will always be isolationist communities that have no contact with these places and people will survive as the disease dies out. Asteroid Strikes. I'm 50-50 on this one. They say an Asteroid killed the dinosaurs, but it didn't kill all life. I guess it depends on the size of the asteroid. If it's the size of the moon, then yeah, no coming back from that one. If its the size of manhattan, I think millions of people will be able to survive that.
Creating a maybe viable colony on another planet does not necessarily mean we could move our entire civlization in a hundred years. Those are two different things.
We're not going anywhere in a hundred years, or a thousand. It's been nearly 50 years since we put a couple guys on the moon. Now imagine putting several hundred, perhaps a few thousand. It's a huge leap from what we've done just to do that. Then we're going to Mars? Build habitable colonies? We'll be lucky to get a couple people there by the end of this century. Unless there is some monumental discovery for a whole different mode of travel, this third rock from our sun is home for many centuries to come. We live and die with what we do or don't do right here. There will be no running from our problems.
66 years difference between a 12 second airplane flight and landing on the moon. As the population keeps growing by the billions, thats billions more minds that have the potential of working on the problem. It's a very strong chance we will have a "monumental" discovery sometime in the next 10-20 years..