No future if we don't go into space
April 27th, 2007 by Hen“I believe that life on Earth is at an ever-increasing risk of being wiped out by a disaster such as sudden global warming, nuclear war, a genetically engineered virus or other dangers,” Hawking said before his flight.
“I believe the human race has no future if it doesn’t go into space.” [bbc news]
Too right. I’d go further - our reason for being is to go into space. Life is about procreation, the earth can in many ways be considered a living being - it needs to procreate. How does it do that? It can wait for a meteorite to hit and send a few microbes off to another planet, or it can come up with a homegrown alternative to spread its seed.
April 27th, 2007 at 12:13 pm
Having worked in computers for a while, I know the importance of backups. Right now, humanity has no backup home. If we lose Earth, either through our own idiocy or rolling craps in Cosmic Asteroids Deluxe, we’re boned.
A terraformed Mars would look pretty good with a sizable human population on it.
April 27th, 2007 at 3:49 pm
you might like the lifeboat foundation:
The Lifeboat Foundation is a nonprofit nongovernmental organization dedicated to encouraging scientific advancements while helping humanity survive existential risks and possible misuse of increasingly powerful technologies, including genetic engineering, nanotechnology, and robotics/AI, as we move towards a technological singularity.