1, 11, 2011
"I don't think we will survive another thousand years without escaping beyond our fragile planet," the words of Stephen Hawkins in a recorded note played at a conference held for his 70th birthday on Sunday. He was too ill to attend the conference but he still repeated his call for humans to colonize other worlds.
In his recorded speech, Hawking stressed the fact that humans face a grim future unless they spread out from their terrestrial home. He pleaded to the audience of scientists that interplanetary travel is something we need to deal with. This message was well received by the scientists as they all have the utmost respect for the remarkable man.
Stephen Hawkins was diagnosed with an incurable degenerative disorder as 21 year old known as Lou Gehrig's Disease. Most people diagnosed with the horrible disease die within a few years, however Hawkins, defying the odds, has spent half a century carrying out his complex research.
My Opinion
Mr. Hawkins is not a man that can be defined by one word, to say the least. His pioneering research is just remarkable and it has changed our world in many ways. Many scientists believe he is just as smart or smarter than Albert Einstein. I found his plead in his voice message very interesting, as it was a topic I had never considered before. I agree with his beliefs that we wont survive for another 1000 years unless we have individual's explore other planets because if you look at the history of planet earth and all of the major events that have changed it's composition, we are about 30,000 years overdue for a catastrophic event. We have discovered numerous planets in our solar system but few seem to be livable, although there are thousands of planets still to be discovered and many scientists believe the possibility of another earth is very realistic.
