British physicist Stephen Hawking says we need to colonize other worlds because humanity will almost certainly face a disaster on Earth sometime in the next few millennia – perhaps a disaster of our own making.
Among the risks he outlined in a report from the BBC are nuclear war, climate change and genetically engineered viruses. What’s more, he said further progress in science and technology will bring “new ways things can go wrong.”
Like SpaceX founder Elon Musk, Hawking believes the best cosmic insurance policy is to create human colonies on other worlds in our solar system and beyond. Find out how he put it in the BBC report.
