Hawking's Brief Answers to the Big Questions: Space Colonization

Summary: Space colonization has eighth place among 10 questions honed by theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking into Brief Answers to the Big Questions.

"This artist’s impression shows a view of the surface of the planet Proxima b orbiting the red dwarf star Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the Solar System. The double star Alpha Centauri AB also appears in the image to the upper-right of Proxima itself. Proxima b is a little more massive than the Earth and orbits in the habitable zone around Proxima Centauri, where the temperature is suitable for liquid water to exist on its surface.": Credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser: CC BY 4.0, via European Southern Observatory

Space colonization accounts for eighth place in the 10 asked and answered questions that a world-renowned theoretical physicist arranged into a final work for posthumous publication by Bantam Books Oct. 15, 2018.

Stephen Hawking (Jan. 8, 1942-March 14, 2018) broaches space colonization in Chapter 4 on "Should We Colonise Space?" of his Brief Answers to the Big Questions. The editor of A Stubbornly Persistent Illusion collection of Albert Einstein's (March 14, 1879-April 18, 1955) scientific writings considers space colonization for human survival outside Earth. He describes human-crewed spacecraft for a lunar base within 30 years, Martian outposts within 50 years and exploration of the outer planet's moons within 200 years.

Program expenses for space exploration and space colonization minimally equal one-fourth of 1 percent of world gross domestic product and 0.1 percent of United States' GDP.

Crewed spacecraft on the Moon by 2050 and Mars by 2070, not probes on Titan and rovers on Mars, find out about humankind as interplanetary species.

Crewed space flight programs and zero-gravity flights, such as the one that gave Hawking a four-minute weightlessness experience in 2007, generate tomorrow's astrophysicists and space scientists. Space exploration has to have commercial entrepreneurship, such as that of Space X pioneer Elon Musk; governmental transparency; public interest, such as in lunar landings, 1969-1972. The International Space Station's zero orbital gravity incurs problematic liquids and such undesirable physiological changes as weakened bones that invalidate long-term survival on crewed space flights.

Zero liquid water and magnetic fields and respectively zero and one percent of the Earth's atmospheric pressure jeopardize space colonization of the lunar and Martian surfaces.

Metal and mineral mining, nuclear and solar power sources and oxygen and water sources in polar ice caps keep subsurface Mars and the subsurface Moon colonizable.

Coldness, gaseousness, hotness and smallness respectively leave Jovian and Saturnian moons, Jupiter and Saturn, Mercury and Venus, and Martian moons off space exploration for space colonization. One percent of 1,000 stars within 30 light years of the Earth theoretically means 10 Earth-like planets within the Goldilocks planet-star distance for surface liquid water. Chemical rockets, at 1.86-mile (3-kilometer) hourly speeds, net respective 130- to 270-day and 3-million-year navigation times to Mars and Alpha Centauri, nearest star system to Earth.

The Breakthrough Starshot research and development program organized by Hawking and Yuri Milner in 2016 offers, perhaps imminently, light propulsion of miniaturized spacecraft by phase-locked lasers.

One hundred gigawatts of power from 100 lasers, perhaps imminently, propel 1,000 0.79-plus-inch (2-plus-centimeter) Star Chip probes with 0.07-plus-ounce (2-plus-gram) sails at 100,000,000-mile (160,934,400-kilometer) hourly speeds.

Star Chip quests queue up asteroid flybys; Mars flyby within one hour; Pluto within days; interstellar space-traveling Voyager within one week; Alpha Centauri within 20-some years. Realizable space colonization of Earth-like Proxima b remains a reason for Star Chip space exploration of Alpha Centauri despite extreme acceleration, cold, collisions, turbulence and vacuums. Human sojourns as separate species, "civilized" earthling, interplanetary travelers and interstellar voyagers respectively start 2 million and 10,000 years ago and in 100 to 500 years.

Einstein theorized light-beam travel and general and special relativity within 20 years, 1895-1915, today's theorized time for tomorrow's nanocraft space exploration that triggers human space colonization.

"NASA plans to grow food on future spacecraft and on other planets as a food supplement for astronauts. Fresh food, such as vegetables, provide essential vitamins and nutrients that will help enable sustainable deep space pioneering." Credits: NASA: Public Domain, via NASA

Acknowledgment

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Image credits:

"This artist’s impression shows a view of the surface of the planet Proxima b orbiting the red dwarf star Proxima Centauri, the closest star to the Solar System. The double star Alpha Centauri AB also appears in the image to the upper-right of Proxima itself. Proxima b is a little more massive than the Earth and orbits in the habitable zone around Proxima Centauri, where the temperature is suitable for liquid water to exist on its surface.": Credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser: CC BY 4.0, via European Southern Observatory @ https://www.eso.org/public/images/eso1629a/

"NASA plans to grow food on future spacecraft and on other planets as a food supplement for astronauts. Fresh food, such as vegetables, provide essential vitamins and nutrients that will help enable sustainable deep space pioneering." Credits: NASA: Public Domain, via NASA @ https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/station/research/news/meals_ready_to_eat

For further information:

Hawking, Stephen, ed. 2009. A Stubbornly Persistent Illusion: The Essential Scientific Works of Albert Einstein. Philadelphia PA: Running Press Book Publishers.

Hawking, Stephen. 2018. "[Chapter] 8: Should We Colonise Space?" Brief Answers to the Big Questions. New York NY: Bantam Books.

Marriner, Derdriu. 18 October 2018. "Hawking's Brief Answers to the Big Questions: Scientific Literacy." Earth and Space News. Thursday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2018/10/hawkings-brief-answers-to-big-questions.html

Marriner, Derdriu 25 October 2018. "Brief Answers to Big Questions: Divine Creation, Scientific Creation?" Earth and Space News. Thursday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2018/10/brief-answers-to-big-questions-divine.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 1 November 2018. "Cosmological Beginnings in Hawking's Brief Answers to Big Questions." Earth and Space News. Thursday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2018/11/cosmological-beginnings-in-hawkings.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 8 November 2018. "Intelligent Life in Stephen Hawking's Brief Answers to Big Questions." Earth and Space News. Thursday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2018/11/intelligent-life-in-stephen-hawkings.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 15 November 2018. "Hawking's Brief Answers to the Big Questions: Predictable Futures?" Earth and Space News. Thursday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2018/11/hawkings-brief-answers-to-big-questions.html

Marriner, Derdriu 22 November 2018. "Hawking's Brief Answers to the Big Questions: Black Hole Interiors." Earth and Space News. Thursday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2018/11/hawkings-brief-answers-to-big-questions_22.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 29 November 2018. "Hawking's Brief Answers to the Big Questions: Is Time Travel Possible?" Earth and Space News. Thursday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2018/11/hawkings-brief-answers-to-big-questions_29.html

Marriner, Derdriu. 6 December 2018. "Hawking's Brief Answers to the Big Questions: Doomsday Earth?" Earth and Space News. Thursday.
Available @ https://earth-and-space-news.blogspot.com/2018/12/hawkings-brief-answers-to-big-questions_6.html