Could (and should) we colonize space?

The astrophysicist Stephen Hawking was convinced that humanity would eventually need to leave Earth to avoid the risk of being wiped out from existence.

He believed that the globe should unite in a massive space exploration program: one initially aimed at building human settlements on the Moon and on Mars, but then across other galaxies.

Astronomers have detected thousands of other planets circling nearby stars – and can pinpoint which ones have the potential to accommodate human life.

The nearest Earth doppelgänger, Proxima b, is still 25 trillion miles away. But what if breakthroughs in technology made it possible for spacecraft to travel that distance?

Toward the end of his life, Hawking helped spearhead Breakthrough Starshot: a project that aims to create nanocraft that could fit in the palm of your hand and travel one-fifth of the speed of light (or 100 million miles per hour).

If these “StarChips” could relay data and images back to Earth, it would be the first step toward mapping an atlas of future extraterrestrial colonies.

Hawking predicted that such a flotilla could be seen as a precursor mission to deploying the first wave of human arks to other Earth-like worlds.

If Proxima b turns out to be a life-friendly globe, it could become Neo-Earth One: marking the start of humanity’s Interstellar Age.

It’s a big “if”, of course, and humans could only get there if their lifespans and/or the speed of space travel were dramatically increased.

Yet the colonization of space, according to Hawking, could transform not only the future of humanity, but the fate of our home planet – marking a new beginning instead of a tragic end.