http://bigthink.com/ideas/21570
Let's face it: The planet is heating up, Earth's population is expanding at an exponential rate, and the the natural resources vital to our survival are running out faster than we can replace them with sustainable alternatives. Even if the human race manages not to push itself to the brink of nuclear extinction, it is still a foregone conclusion that our aging sun will expand and swallow the Earth in roughly 7.6 billion years.
So, according to famed theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking, it's time to free ourselves from Mother Earth. "I believe that the long-term future of the human race must be in space," Hawking tells Big Think. "It will be difficult enough to avoid disaster on planet Earth in the next hundred years, let alone the next thousand, or million. The human race shouldn't have all its eggs in one basket, or on one planet. Let's hope we can avoid dropping the basket until we have spread the load."
Hawking says he is an optimist, but his outlook for the future of man's existence is fairly bleak. In the recent past, humankind's survival has been nothing short of "a question of touch and go" he says, citing the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1963 as just one example of how man has narrowly escaped extinction. According to the Federation of American Scientists there are still about 22,600 stockpiled nuclear weapons scattered around the planet, 7,770 of which are still operational. In light of the inability of nuclear states to commit to a global nuclear non-proliferation treaty, the threat of a nuclear holocaust has not subsided.
In fact, "the frequency of such occasions is likely to increase in the future," says Hawking, "We shall need great care and judgment to negotiate them all successfully."
Even if humans manage to avoid a nuclear stand-off over the next thousand years, our fate on this planet is still pretty much certain. University of Sussex astrophysicist Dr. Robert Smith says eventually the aging Sun will accelerate global warming to a point where all of Earth's water will simply evaporate.
"Life on Earth will have disappeared long before 7.6 billion years," says Smith, "Scientists have shown that the Sun's slow expansion will cause the temperature at the surface of the Earth to rise. Oceans will evaporate, and the atmosphere will become laden with water vapor, which (like carbon dioxide) is a very effective greenhouse gas. Eventually, the oceans will boil dry and the water vapor will escape into space. In a billion years from now the Earth will be a very hot, dry and uninhabitable ball."
Finally, between the next thousand years or so that Hawking says it will take man to make the planet uninhabitable and the billion years it will take for the sun to turn our planet into an arid wasteland, there is always the chance that a nearby supernova, an asteroid, or a quick and painless black hole could do us in.
Takeaway
One way or another, the life on Earth will likely become uninhabitable for mankind in the future. We need to start seriously thinking about how we will free ourselves from the constraints of this dying planet.
Why We Should Reject This Idea
Despite what Hawking describes as humankind's "selfish and aggressive instinct," there may be some biological impediments to finding another planet to inhabit.
"The nearest star [to Earth] is Proxima Centauri which is 4.2 light years away," says University of Michigan astrophysicist Katherine Freese, "That means that, if you were traveling at the speed of light the whole time, it would take 4.2 years to get there."
Unfortunately, at the moment we can only travel at about ten thousandth of light speed, which means if man were to use chemical fuel rockets similar to the those used during the Apollo mission to the moon, the journey would take about 50,000 years. Without the use of a science-fiction-like warp drive or cryogenic freezing technology, no human would live long enough to survive the journey. In addition, "the radiation you would encounter alone would kill you, even if you could get a rocket to go anywhere near that fast," says Freese.
On the upside, if man ever develops the technology to travel at the speed of light while remaining shielded from cosmic radiation, he could effectively travel into the future. "A five year trip at light speed could push an astronaut forward by 1000 earth years," says Freese, "If he wanted to see if any humans were still around by then."
Hawking's right. Ill hopefully be abandoning the planet in 50-60 years, max.
Nice try, Decepticon. I'm staying put.
I'll be all used and dried up way before then.
We must have world peace before we can develop the technology needed using nuclear energy to build a space craft to take us to Earth II.
It's all based in Star Trek roots...in Roddenbery's Utopia where Mankind has reached an age of enlightenment and fighting amongst ourselves is a thing of the past.
Unfortunately, the only way to get to that point is for the world as we know it to end.
And that's where Revelation comes in, but I digress.
well if we cant replace them fast enough, than what the is going to space going to do?
we still need oxygen, water and food.
i am just glad am alive now and not 7 billion years from now
Earth II is gonna be so much more badass than OG Earth
"It's better to burn out than to fade away,"
Color me not scared.
Same warnings were being issued in the early 1970's. Only differece was that in the 1970's, they all thought we were heading into the next Ice Age.
Oh well. So much for concensus science.
I also like Hawking warning us about trying to contact extra terrestrials because they might be dangerous. I think he had just watched a ty M. Night Shyamalan film when he issued that warning.
It's like this...any ETs that might exist that already know about us have to be peaceful beings or are simply not allowed to interact with us by whomever is in power.
Otherwise, they would have destroyed us and taken over a long long time ago.
So then you might also have other ETs that don't know about us yet.
Hawking is right, it is wise not to reach out to strangers when you have no idea what their intentions would be...especially technologically advanced strangers.
The only way to reach the heights of technology are through pure good intentions or through pure evil ones.
So lets get our stuff together here on this planet before we dust off the welcome matt.
If Steven Hawking is so ing smart, then why hasn't he left the planet yet?
Yea, that's what I thought.
I've left the planet on a few occasions back in the day when I broke through to the other side. Best trips I've ever had.
Bull . Everyone knows that the original is always the best. The sequel always sucks, except Terminator 2.Earth II is gonna be so much more badass than OG Earth
Superman 2...Lethal Weapon 2...Alien 2...
but I get your point!
Since God will be directing the sequel I doubt it will suck.
Aliens was NOT better than Alien. You could have gone with Rocky as being a good sequel but the original won an Academy Award. But come on, T2 had a shape shifting Terminator. How cool was that? And a rocking soundtrack. GNR rocked it.
As for god making the sequel, it would have been MADE. You see, the planet would have to have been made for us to live on. So how do we know it's really a sequel.
What if it's like Avatar? Or better yet, what if it's like an AE? God wouldn't have had anything to do with that. God that movie had potential and sucked a big, fat one.
Godfather 2
Empire Strikes Back
Wrath of Kahn
Dark Knight
Dawn of the Dead('78)
Evil Dead 2
Mad Max 2 - The Road Warrior
an AE could have been better, I agree..... But I liked it none the less.
It was like Starship Troopers. There was tons of material to work with, and it seemed like they just took a short cut. Could have been way better.
And it didn't help that an AE had a Creed song as the main song in all the advertisements.
Earth II will be the only sequel better than the original. I don't wanna hear about Aliens, T2, Empire Strikes Back, and ESPECIALLY The Godfather part 2. The originals were all better than those. But Earth II will be far more awesomer cause it will be just for healthy living while we use this Earth for partying. It'll be an awesome system we'll have going.
Well, the director(Paul Verhoeven) admits to never finishing the novel, claiming he read through the first few chapters and became both bored and depressed. Might be why the movie was radically different than the book. I like the film the way it is though. Probably should have just given it a different le, as I consider them separate works.
so this is basically
"The Sun will burn out one day, or we are going to kill ourselves and use up all resources. Man's future is in space"
ugh...? what the ? this passes for news now? who the doesnt know this already
True, most of those are arguable but I can't imagine anybody preferring Mad Max over The Road Warrior or Star Trek: The Motion Picture over Wrath of Kahn.
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