space.newscientist.com — Stephen Hawking called for a massive investment in establishing colonies on the Moon and Mars in a lecture in honour of NASA's 50th anniversary. He argued that the world should devote about 10 times as much as NASA's current budget – or 0.25 percent of the world's financial resources – to space.
Apr 21, 2008 View in Crawl 4
krewlApr 22, 2008
Easy for him to say, but not everybody rides around on a Lunar rover.
rogerstrongApr 22, 2008
You won't stop religion with out savagely supressing it, and even then it's unlikely. You won't stop wars and hatred without stopping the causes - religion, hunger for power, the simple principle of "they have something we want", and soon (if not already) overpopulation.In other words, off-world colonies are a far more credible insurance.
ozanwebApr 22, 2008
And in the unlikely case you've clicked on the link for this Digg article, you will see that that picture is included in this article as well.
slightlygiftedApr 23, 2008
he couldve just let them keep building till they reached the top and realized there was nothing there but space.
loxiasApr 23, 2008
Excuse me sir/madame, I think you may have confused Family Guy with Futurama, equals with greater than, and win with 9000.
loreleileelongApr 23, 2008
Actually Mars would be too close to the sun during the red giant stage (Earth would be about where Mercury is, and Mars would be the new Venus). If humans haven't reached other star systems by the time the sun goes giant, we're sort of screwed.
rileyluckApr 24, 2008
i dont know about that one.... im just talking about the odds of something happening in infinity
starmanjonesApr 24, 2008
i tried to read. but i was just smiling too big. i'm from the first gen of humans that had a real possibility to live off the earth. we didn't know how it could happen. we were looked at like we were just a little nuts when we started explaining... but we knew. so when i see a thread like this with people more than just me and that other guy arguing the undeniable logic of it... all the blank stares were worth it. i think i'll make it.i have a couple points that seem to be argued that are ridiculous. to the people arguing we should invest in stabilizing the damage we have caused. ya we should fix the earth if we can. but the damage can't be fixed with billions of humans destroying habitat... and spewing the by products of technology everywhere. when you say... fix the earth you don't realizing you are advocating reducing the population to a few million maybe? thats what the earths biosphere will accommodate. the earth will take care of humans and our over extended range. it won't be pretty. the best thing for both humans and earth and its habitat and other life is to leave. protect it like its the only place in the universe we know of that has life.but lets say we do figure out how to stay. it won't last forever. as far as humans are concerned it probably won't last more than a couple hundred thousand years. the climate will change or an astroid will strike or a gamma ray burst will come through the neighborhood. something. not billions of years. much less time. no more humans. our art and our music gone from existence like it never existed. thats a tragedy. science... math... all that is known by all spacefaring intelligence. only we can save human culture. getting off the earth is the only arguable position. space activists are the ultimate environmentalists.-----to the idiot social darwinists... quit saying its a waste of money. quit arguing that business and the market would take care of it if it needed taking care of. it didn't. your argument is rhetorical. it has no substance. it didn't. so... you know... stick it where the sun don't shine. NASA did. the Soviets did. all the great things done by humans was done by government. its our strength in numbers. your plan just has us clubbing each other for survival. stupid human.------to those that argue about saving humans and the need to spend money for starving people... all that. i am with you. but i don't see your plan. you can't tell me how you are going to fix it. by the numbers. this then this then this. most of the plans that are made involve dividing the resources better. managing things better. being better people in a place where per capita resources are dwindling. i don't think i can buy the idea that will happen. it never has. most humans are living poorly right now. all is see is haves and have nots. we have a plan. give us the resources and we can save humans and all life on earth. we can spread earth life where there is no life. we can show you in concrete terms with no new technology how we raise the quality of human life by using the dead stuff floating between planets and the energy streaming out from the sun. free... or cheap for the gathering. we are dying of expensive resources and you only have to fill up your car to know that. remove those expenses and it becomes an engineering problem not a social problem governed by shortage. we can show you precisely how we can make human creativity the premium. make it an engineering problem. humans are great engineers. meet you off the shoulder of orion...
designerApr 24, 2008
I dare him to race me in the 100 meter dash.
staticthunderApr 25, 2008
Would be nice if you had anything other than speculation then.
thestooge1Jun 10, 2008
Humor not logic