Spaceflight or Extinction

Stephen Hawking

Stephen Hawking (1942—) is a professor of mathematics at the University of Cambridge.

Biological weapons are even more likely than nuclear weapons to cause an extinction event

In the long term, I am more worried about biology. Nuclear weapons need large facilities, but genetic engineering can be done in a small lab. You can’t regulate every lab in the world. The danger is that either by accident or design, we create a virus that destroys us.

Roger Highfield, “Colonies in Space May Be Only Hope, Says Hawking,” Daily Telegraph, October 16, 2001. Also available online at http://news.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2001/10/16/nhawk16.xml.

We will colonize space and survive

I don’t think the human race will survive the next thousand years, unless we spread into space. There are too many accidents that can befall life on a single planet. But I’m an optimist. We will reach out to the stars.

Ibid.

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