Stephen Hawking

Most people recognize the name "Stephen Hawking." He wrote a book that was a global best-seller (which I used as a source in one of my papers), and is regarded by most to be "one of the best-known theoretical physicists of his generation." Considering how I know next to nothing about theoretical physics, the fact that even I know about him says something. I was a little surprised by the statements Hawking made in this article. He thinks that we could have a permanent moon base in 20 years, and a colony on Mars in 40 years. Although we might have the technology to accomplish this, I doubt that governments will have warmed up to the idea in time to meet Hawking's time estimate. Though I might not think that the timetable is reasonable, the logic behind the idea makes sense to me. Many people are concerned about greenhouse gases, global warming, and the Earth's dwindling resources. Maybe if we can't fix the damage that we've done, we can start over with self-sufficient space colonies. Though people previously might have thought of the concept as something that would only happen our wildest, science-fiction induced dreams, I think that this crazy dream will someday become a reality.