Prof Stephen Hawking: man faces nuclear armageddon and must colonise space

[GliderGuider]

11. I've been a major fan of space exploration since Sputnik.

I was a "rocket boi" in the mid-60s, just like Homer Hickam, right down to the fuel mixing and the backyard launch pad. I was going to go into aerospace engineering until I got my first look at the math required for orbital mechanics. I oppose everyone who advocates cutting the NASA budget or thinks that we should be chopping the pittance we spend on planetary exploration. I've dreamed of L5 cylinders and beanstalks, and went to see "2001" five times.

But.
But.
But.

The reality is that we have evolved and live in a deep gravity well, the resource costs of maintaining human life outside of an earth-like planetary environment is utterly prohibitive, there are no other such environments available, and we have gravely overestimated both out own ingenuity and all-in cost of the resources required. We are running out of critical resources needed just to maintain life as we know it here on Earth. We may be near the end of this cycle of civilization, a situation that is the direct result of our heedless cleverness and our inability to accept limits.

The dream of living elsewhere in the universe is a puerile fantasy, unworthy of a species that fancies itself as approaching some pinnacle of adulthood. It just plain ain't going to happen. Sorry to be so harsh - but how do you think I felt when I realized it, given my background?