Sunday, October 19, 2008

The Final Frontier: An Essay By Stephen Hawkings

From Cosmos Magazine:

In the 1960s the space race created a fascination with science and great technological advances. To find alien life we need to take back up that mantle, says astrophysicist Stephen Hawking, and send people further into space.

Why should we go into space? What is that justification for spending all that effort and money on getting a few lumps of Moon rock? Aren't there better causes here on Earth?

In a way, the situation was like that in Europe before 1492. People might well have argued that it was a waste of money to send Columbus on a wild goose chase over an almost unimaginable distance. Yet, the discovery of the New World made a profound difference to the old one.

Spreading out into space will have an even greater effect; it will completely change the future of the human race and maybe determine whether we have any future at all.

It won't solve many of our immediate problems on Earth, but it will give us a new perspective on them and cause us to look both outwards and inwards. With luck it could unite us to face a common challenge.

Read more ....

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