Stephen Hawking And The Colonization Of Mars

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Video: Stephen Hawking And The Colonization Of Mars

Video: Stephen Hawking And The Colonization Of Mars
Video: Stephen Hawking's Universe: Colonizing Mars 2024, March
Stephen Hawking And The Colonization Of Mars
Stephen Hawking And The Colonization Of Mars
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Stephen Hawking and the Colonization of Mars - Stephen Hawking, Colonization, Earth, Mars
Stephen Hawking and the Colonization of Mars - Stephen Hawking, Colonization, Earth, Mars

In recent years, there has been so much talk about the end of the world that it has already set the teeth on edge. We survived the launch of the Large Hadron Collider, countless comets and killer asteroids flew past, and even the ominous date of December 21, 2012 passed without incident

Now we are being told new apocalypses with scenarios one worse than the other. Be that as it may, most scientists are convinced that sooner or later the existence of man will be called into question. At least on planet Earth …

PREDICTION

Stephen Hawking. The person of this British astrophysicist is known to most of the educated inhabitants of our planet. This is the same wheelchair-bound scientist who is often featured on newscasts and who communicates with the world through a computer speech synthesizer. Back in the early 1960s, Hawking began to show symptoms of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, a disease that leads to paralysis and with which, as a rule, people do not live for more than ten years.

However, despite the illness, the scientist still leads an active life, periodically lectures around the world and talks about his views on the future of mankind.

In April 2013, at a seminar in one of the Los Angeles medical centers, 71-year-old Hawking called for more active space exploration: "Humanity will not be able to live even 1000 years if it does not master other planets as its new place of residence."

The thoughts are sound, the goals are clear - the far from rosy prospects of our civilization are already visible to the naked eye. Nuclear war, flood, asteroid fall - any of these options are real. Recently, the idea of global warming has become more and more popular.

Thanks to him, according to the forecasts of Australian scientists, by 2300 the existence of man on Earth will become impossible. An increase in temperature will affect everything, including the water cycle in nature, which will change the climate system of our planet in the most unpredictable way. According to the forecasts of the same experts, in three hundred years the average annual temperature on Earth will rise by 12 degrees, which will have a destructive effect on humans, and more than 40% of the current land will be under water. There will be nothing good on the lands remaining above the water either, because the resources necessary to maintain life will be exhausted by that time.

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We can say that the 1,000 years given to mankind by Stephen Hawking is even an optimistic figure and one should have thought about the future already yesterday. By all indications, our civilization smelled fried, and therefore the instinct of self-preservation is whispering so persistently in the ear that it is time to be saved. But if in the Stone Age it was enough to climb the nearest tree for this, now we are thinking about changing the registration, "in an adult way" going beyond the Earth's atmosphere. However, first we need to solve several problems, the main of which is the long-term presence of a person in space …

DREAMS OF BARAK KHUSEYNOVICH

On July 8, 2011, US President Barack Obama announced his ambitions to conquer the universe. Speaking to the staff of the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, Obama said that the American astronauts have a new goal - the Mars landing program in 2030. Of course, Stephen Hawking and other proponents of space travel strongly support the idea of the American president, but many observers are inclined to believe that plans to colonize space will remain dreams.

The arguments of the opponents are very convincing, for example, Tenis Pirsma, a professor at the University of Groningen (Netherlands), says that a long stay in zero gravity is contrary to the biological essence of man, which firmly binds our body to the Earth.

Hawking, confined to a wheelchair for many years, probably underestimates the biological limitations that a long stay in space imposes on the human body. To assess the devastating consequences of weightlessness, it is enough to look at the astronauts who, having returned to Earth from the ISS, practically cannot move without assistance.

Our body is able to function normally only under conditions of gravity, and in space, the muscles are actually turned off from human activity, which leads to rapid muscle atrophy. A sharp decrease in the activity of muscle tissues reduces oxygen consumption, and the activity of the bone marrow worsens. In a state of zero gravity, a person loses up to two percent of bone mass per month, and the conquerors of Mars may lose half of their skeleton during a three-year journey to the Red Planet.

However, the influence of weightlessness on the physical characteristics of a person is still in flower, because the main thing that suffers in astronauts during their stay in space is the cardiovascular system. After just one week in orbit, the heart is significantly reduced in size, the pressure rises, and the blood flow to the brain is reduced several times. Astronauts who are on the ISS for several months after returning to Earth experience severe dizziness and even temporary blindness.

No matter how cynical it may sound, one must admit that if a manned expedition to Mars still takes place in the coming decades, then by the time of arrival, not brave paratroopers with iron health will land on the Red Planet, but Stephen Hawking's "twins" in wheelchairs. Perhaps the only solution to this problem is the creation of spacecraft with a source of artificial gravity, but technically this is difficult to implement and serious developments in this area are not being conducted.

Theoretically, centrifugal force can be used to create gravity in space, but for this you need to build a ship, part of which will continuously rotate around its axis. Perhaps humanity will have time to develop to a level when such flying vehicles will become a reality, but this will not be enough for a breakthrough into other galaxies.

GALACTIC CONQUISTADORS

A planetary catastrophe and climate change are just one of the reasons for Hawking's escape from Earth. The scientist is firmly convinced of the existence of extraterrestrial biological life, but warns against contact with it. "In a universe of 100 billion galaxies, each containing hundreds of millions of stars, it is unlikely that Earth is the only place where life develops," Hawking says. - From a mathematical point of view, the idea of the existence of alien life seems quite reasonable.

The real problem is how the aliens might look, whether the earthlings would like them with their appearance. After all, they can be microbes, or single-celled animals, or worms that have inhabited the Earth for millions of years."

The astrophysicist believes that aliens who have exhausted the capabilities of their home planet can roam in space on huge space ships-arks. Of course, during long journeys they will need resources, and in this case the Earth will have an unenviable fate. “Most likely, the aliens possessing consciousness will pose a great danger to humans. The land can be conquered and plundered by them. Remember what happened when the conquistadors sailed to America. I don't think that humanity will be more fortunate than the Indians,”says the British scientist.

The main and most valuable resource of our planet is water. The relatively new documentary Into the Universe with Stephen Hawking, released on Discovery Channel in 2010, simulates and depicts the capture of the Earth. According to the scenario, representatives of an alien civilization, who squandered their water sources, rush to us for resources. With the help of computer graphics, the film shows how a fleet of spaceships emerge from the "hyperspace tunnel", which are heading towards Earth for the purpose of colonization.

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In an interview with reporters ahead of the release of the film, Hawking said that humanity should not seek contact with extraterrestrial intelligence, but as soon as possible to develop means of protection against it. The difference in the age of the culture of earthlings and possible aliens can be even a billion years - due to the technological abyss, we will not have a single chance of salvation.

Skeptics say such claims are being made in order to provoke a militaristic race by increasing the US military and space budgets. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the destruction of bin Laden and other "victories", America needs a new enemy and a global idea to keep taxpayers at bay. Evil aliens are good for this purpose, and talk about "not long left" for earthlings is great for launching an expensive space campaign.

OUR NEW HOUSE

“Humanity should not indulge in illusions,” says Lev Zeleny, director of the Institute of Space Research of the Russian Academy of Sciences, “after all, a person will not fly further than Mars”. According to the Russian scientist, the main obstacle on the way to the stars will be huge distances and cosmic radiation. The Earth's magnetic field protects astronauts from harmful rays, but far from their home planet, the human body will be subject to catastrophic effects.

Radiation will destroy DNA, the central nervous system, cell mutations will begin, and even reaching Mars, a person will not be able to live there for a long time, since he will die from radiation sickness. "Earthlings simply do not want to move deeper into outer space, because the risk to their lives is too great," Zeleny says, and it is difficult to disagree with this. If many of us are afraid of flying to Turkey or Egypt, what can we say about space launches, especially considering the number of accidents and disasters at the start! At the same time, one should not forget about the huge financial costs associated with sending even one person to the nearest Mars.

Even if we imagine that Hawking's dreams will come true and conditions for life will be created on Mars, then only a select few will receive a residence permit there. Of course, we have no right to plead for the services of a British thinker to science. We cannot do otherwise than with deep respect for his iron will, but in the matter of the survival of mankind, it is necessary to look at things more soberly. Moreover, the alternative - the preservation of the home planet - lies under our noses. Agree that it is much easier to preserve the Earth, which is ideally suited for our existence, than to seek refuge in the distant and dangerous corners of space. Even the problem of overpopulation of the planet, which many talk about, can be solved if instead of bases on other planets something similar is created, for example, at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean.

In the sensational film by Roland Emmerich "2012", the plot is also built on the salvation of human civilization in the face of a global cataclysm. Throughout almost the entire picture, the main characters strive to get on a spaceship, tickets for which have already been booked for the mighty of this world. Closer to the final, it turns out that the elite of mankind does not at all strive for space and instead of spaceships, heavy-duty arks were built to wait out the global flood on the surface. Probably, this is the golden mean, and with it the solution of our problems.

As for the exploration of space, then, of course, this is an integral part of our future. However, you should not hover in the clouds, believing that we, ordinary people, are going to save us from unfavorable living conditions or an ecological disaster. In the next 100-200 years, space can only become a source of resources and will remain a sphere of collision of national interests of earthly states.

It is naive to make plans for resettlement to other planets, but, however, the language will not turn to reproach Stephen Hawking for anything. Like any real scientist, he cannot be content with the everyday and mundane around him and therefore with such passion he reaches out for the stars, although he understands that by the standards of the Universe we will remain barbarians for a long time …

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