ONE WAY MISSION?

How we WILL colonise distant planet when Earth's doomed - Stephen Hawking

HUMANS will have to make a "one way" journey to a distant planet carrying everything they need to start a new world to save mankind, according to Professor Stephen Hawking.

By JON AUSTIN

PUBLISHED: 17:43, Wed, Jun 21, 2017 | UPDATED: 18:28, Wed, Jun 21, 2017

Yesterday, Express.co.uk was first to report on Mr Hawking's theory we have just a few hundred years left on Earth, and must find an alternative planet, because of the threat posed by over population, climate change, asteroids and other dangers lurking in the universe.

But, just how would we do it?

Mr Hawking told the Starmus Festival, a scientific conference in Trondheim, Norway, which began on Sunday and continues until Friday, our best bet for finding an Earth-sized rocky planet the right distance from its sun to be not too hot or too cold, and hold water, was in the Alpha Centauri star system around 4.4 light years away.

He said we are doomed unless we can develop a small "nano craft" which can travel there at near to the speed of light.

Mr Hawking believes this may be possible to achieve over the next 290 to 500 years, with the probe taking 25 years to get there.

Stephen Hawking said the craft would be used to scout out if the conditions were favourable to potentially house life, and beam back the information from distant space.

If conditions were thought to be right, a large craft, also capable of interstellar travel would have to be sent on a "one-way mission" to try to colonise the new planet.

He said: "This is long-term thinking, and by long term, I mean hundreds or thousands of years.

"It won't be easy, where we go we will need to build a civlisation.

"We will need to take the practical means of establishing a whole new ecosystem, that will survive in an environment we know very little about. 

"And we will of course need to consider transporting several thousands of people, animals, plants, friendly bacteria and insects.

"Maybe there are things we will need and do not have enough of, but whatever, it is a no return journey.

"There will be no returning to Earth after a few months or years." 

Mr Hawking said there was the chance anywhere we reach may already be inhabited by intelligent life.

He said as life developed on Earth, "it must also be possible for life to appear on other suitable planets".

Even if the probability is small, he added: "It is logical to assume that since the universe is infinite, it will have evolved elsewhere."

He said there are three reasons why we have probably not yet heard from aliens.

Mr Hawking said the chance of life forming may be very low, and even if it does, the probability of it developing into intelligent life could be even lower.

The third reason intelligent life forms may have come and gone is from wiping themselves out through wars and destruction of their planets. 

Mr Hawking said there is no way of achieving the goal, unless there are reignited space programmes across the globe, with the enthusiasm seen which led to the first moon landing.

He said: "It seems we live in an era where science is in danger of being held in low esteem and this could have serious consequences.

"Few young people seem to want to take up science."

We have a different view See first book in a series of Books “Don’t tell me I’ve been on that thing…!” (UFO)