Putting the first man on the moon may have seemed like a giant leap at the time, but it will soon seem like a tiny step if Stephen Hawking's plans for space exploration come to pass. During last night’s Live from Space programme, the renowned astrophysicist said we will have settlements on the moon ‘within 50 years’, and believes there will be people living on Mars by 2100. And if we fail to colonise new planets, Professor Hawking believes the human race faces imminent extinction because there will be too many of us for the Earth to support.
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My Take - I know Stephen Hawking is supposed to be brilliant at what he does, which by virtue of the field requires a great deal of speculation, but Hawking has somehow become the one man on the planet whose views are untouchable. I have been reading his views on a great many things over the years and I think a great deal of what he says is speculator baloney, and this ranks right up at the top of the list.
I know, I know, "he's an expert"! So what? When you go back in time we find it's the experts who are the most wrong in their predictions, and I think it’s because they're in love with their own ideas, their older and unwilling to let go of whatever influence they may have, and they're now finding it difficult to understand new ideas and concepts, but no matter the reason - They're errors of prediction were massively wrong.
And so it is with this one!
I will state categorically we do not have the technology to live in such a harsh environment. I will state categorically that we will not have that technology in fifty years. I wonder if Hawking would be willing to bet all he owns on that?
Because touching down and going home - or a few people living in a bubble being constantly resupplied and rotated - which can't even be done now - isn't living on the moon.
In the 1970’s Carter and his crowd insisted that
solar power was the way to go. It was a
technological failure. It’s now forty
years later and we still haven’t been able to progress technologically enough
to call solar power anything but a failure. So where exactly is this great technological
advancement to come from that would allow humanity to live on another world?
Oh, one more thing. He's wrong on population also! What we need are affluent societies world over. That's when people stop making babies and stabilize the population.
Hmmmm...now I'm beginning to wonder. What has he been right about?
Oh, one more thing. He's wrong on population also! What we need are affluent societies world over. That's when people stop making babies and stabilize the population.
Hmmmm...now I'm beginning to wonder. What has he been right about?
I am always impressed by your site, but, in this case, I take a contrarian view without actually confronting your assertions head-on.
ReplyDeleteHawkins has said the obvious before: "The future of the human race depends on getting off the planet." What he now foresees -- not much better than any good John W. Campbell, Jr. writer from sci-fi's Golden Age -- is a map of necessities leading out of the solar system.
Humanity has never reached a shore where we finally sat down and said: "This is it. We won't even try to cross this ocean." Hawkins' tech may not be available now, but you are as rash as he is, to say it cannot be done in half a century.
Nobody foresaw most of the 20th century's biggest scientific breakthroughs. Neither do you and I, in regards to the 21st. But this much is clear...
As you know, a couple weeks before the Wright Brothers gave man wings, the most prominent academic physicist of his day denounced the very idea of heavier-than-air flight.
Brilliant and accomplished as you may be, sir, don't be that guy.