Human race ‘must colonise space or face extinction’, warns Stephen Hawking

By Niall Firth

Stephen Hawking has warned that unless the human race colonises space within two centuries it will disappear forever.

The astrophysicist says that our only chance for long-term survival is to move away from Earth and begin to inhabit far-flung planets.

In an interview with the website Big Think, Professor Hawking said he was an optimist but the next few hundred years had to be negotiated carefully if humans were to survive.

Stephen Hawking has warned that humans will only survive if we leave Earth and venture into space

‘I see great danger for the human race,’ he said. ‘There have been a number of times in the past when survival has been a question of touch and go.

‘The Cuban missile crisis in 1963 is one of these. The frequency of such occasions is likely to increase in the future. We shall need great care and judgment to negotiate them all successfully.

‘But I am an optimist. If we can avoid disaster for the next two centuries our species should be safe as we spread into space.’

Earlier this year, Professor Hawking warned humans should be wary about trying to make contact with other alien life forms as we could not be sure that they would be friendly.

‘If we are the only intelligent dead’beings in the galaxy we should make sure we survive and continue.’

But he warned that mankind was entering an increasingly dangerous period.

‘Our population and use of the finite resources of planet Earth are growing exponentially along with our technical ability to change the environment for good and ill,’ said the author of the bestseller, A Brief History of Time.

‘But our genetic code carries selfish and aggressive instincts that were a survival advantage in the past. It will be difficult enough to avoid disaster in the next 100 years let alone the next thousand or a million.

‘Our only chance of long-term survival is not to remain on planet Earth but to spread into space.

‘We have made remarkable progress in the last 100 years but if we want to continue beyond the next 100 years our future is in space.’