The world's most famous scientist, Stephen Hawking, says humans need to
move out into space in order to guarantee the survival of the species.
This, of course, is something that has always seemed inevitable to space buffs and sci-fi fans, but it's about time somebody of Hawking's intellectual throw-weight has given voice to it. Carl Sagan's been gone too long. According to USA Today:
"The British astrophysicist told a news conference in Hong Kong that humans could have a permanent base on the moon in 20 years and a colony on Mars in the next 40 years."
Hawking says that we are in increasing danger of wiping ourselves out through nuclear war, sudden global warming or even a genetically engineered virus. Because of this growing threat, he believes it's time we get off our
asses and out of the cradle. We need to boldly go... wait a minute... that sounds familiar... {Art by Kimmo Isokoski}
Thinking about these things may seem like a waste of time to most people with a mortgage and bills to pay, but I've got one of those great jobs where I can actually let my mind wander and convince myself I'm working.
The idea of moving out into and then beyond our own solar system is something I've been thinking about all my writing career. Back in the late 80s, my first writing partner Brad Markowitz and I sold a sci-fi feature to Warner Brothers with Silver Pictures -- "The Face" -- about the first manned mission to Mars. Our version never got made, although "Mission to Mars" back in 2000 was so close to what we wrote (down to a stranded astronaut from a failed mission, a rescue mission and the face on Mars) that the only difference was we never got to spend any of the residual checks.
Actually, this space thing's been a passion all my life. I got fired from my first real job so that I could go home to see Neil Armstrong walk on the moon. Later, as a reporter, I covered the Viking Mars landings and the Voyager Saturn encounters for both PBS and CNN, plus I covered the launch and landing of multiple space shuttles, and even applied for the Journalist-in-Space program before it was jettisoned after the Columbia disaster.
Hope we do as Hawking suggests...
