Stephen Hawking wants a lunar base as time is running out for Earth

Stephen Hawking says humans should return to the Moon and by 2025 they should be able to colonise Mars in an effort to spread humanity beyond our own planet. 

Speaking at the Starmus Festival in Trondheim, Norway, celebrity physicist Stephen Hawking once again talked about spreading humanity beyond our own planet. Hawking told those in attendance that humans should think about returning to the Moon to establish a lunar base and by 2025, we should colonise Mars, as time for Earth is running out.

“We are running out of space and the only places to go to are other worlds. It is time to explore other solar systems. Spreading out may be the only thing that saves us from ourselves. I am convinced that humans need to leave Earth,” he said according to voanews.com. “If humanity is to continue for another million years, our future lies in boldly going where no one else has gone before.”

And the efforts made towards reaching these ambitious goals will also have positive side effects, the scientist thinks. Hawking believes that since a global approach is needed to make mankind a multiplanetary species, it will bring nations together and it will also boost the new generation’s interest in science and space travel. It would be similar to what happened back in the sixties when the first flight to the Moon took place.

“To leave Earth demands a concerted global approach, everyone should join in. We need to rekindle the excitement of the early days of space travel in the sixties,” the Cambridge physicist said according to alphr.com.

But Hawking did not stick to talking only about the future of space travel and the need for further exploration. He also took a shot at the US president and his decision to opt out of the Paris Agreement. His remarks were tied to the notion that for our planet, time is running out and with climate change deniers, it could be sooner rather than later.

“I am not denying the importance of fighting climate change and global warming, unlike Donald Trump, who may just have taken the most serious, and wrong, the decision on climate change this world has seen,” Hawking said.

This was not the first time that Hawking talked about transforming humans into multiplanetary species but his proposed calendar is much more optimistic than that proposed by NASA.

The American Space Agency believes that by 2020, it will be able to send astronauts into deep space in order to verify readiness for a Mars mission that should take place, according to the schedule, sometime in the early 2030s with astronauts orbiting the red planet’s lower orbit. According to NASA, the 2030 phase will include testing the entry, descent and landing techniques needed to get to the Martian surface and studying what’s needed for in-situ resource utilization or “living off the land.”