BENHAR: Stephen Hawking has dubbed space as an important life insurance for future survival of humans and believes that long term future of the human race must be space.
Hawking was speaking to London’s Official Guest of Honour Adaeze Uyanwah as he gave her a personal guided tour of his favourite places in the city’s famous Science Museum.
One such place in the museum was the Space Gallery where he pointed out both the command module of Apollo 10, launched in May 1969 as a dress rehearsal for the first moon landing, and a model of the Apollo 11 moon lander. While pointing these out he told Adaeze: “it is important we continue human space exploration”.
Professor Hawking believes that humans stepping foot on moon has “changed the future of the human race” in ways that we are yet to understand. He did add that though this feat didn’t actually resolving any immediate problems of planet Earth, it did pave the way for humans to look both outward and inward.
“I believe that the long term future of the human race must be space and that it represents an important life insurance for our future survival, as it could prevent the disappearance of humanity by colonising other planets”, Hawking said.
When asked by Adaeze which shortcoming of humans would he alter if it was possible, he replied that aggression is one thing that he would like to correct the most.
“The human failing I would most like to correct is aggression. It may have had survival advantage in caveman days, to get more food, territory, or partner with whom to reproduce, but now it threatens to destroy us all. A major nuclear war would be the end of civilization, and maybe the end of the human race.”
Hawking believes that empathy is a quality that needs to be magnified as “It brings us together in a peaceful, loving state.”
