Stephen Hawking Explains How We Could Travel to Mars in Less Than One Hour

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Stephen Hawking says it could be possible for humans to reach Mars in less than an hour in the future. The world-renowned physicist made the claim introducing the recent Tencent WE Summit in Beijing by video.

Stephen Hawking made a video appearance at the annual exploration and innovation summit Tencent WE Summit in Beijing, saying that the human race has to “boldly go where no one has gone before” if it wants to continue on for another million years.

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According to the famous physicist, the world will become so crowded by 2600, that power consumption will turn the planet into a sizzling fire ball.

He said that the best way out is through space migration, which could be made possible through initiatives like Breakthrough Starshot, a Hawking-backed attempt to reach Alpha Centauri.

Breakthrough Starshot is a project that aims to demonstrate proof of concept for ultra-fast light-driven nanocrafts, and lay the foundations for a first launch to the nearby star within the next generation. Along the way, the project could generate important supplementary benefits to astronomy, including solar system exploration and detection of Earth-crossing asteroids.

“The idea behind this innovation is to have the nanocraft ride on the light beam. Such a system could reach Mars in less than an hour, or reach Pluto in days, pass Voyager in under a week and reach Alpha Centauri in just over 20 years,” he said.

As we migrate out into the solar system, we could one day reach Mars in an hour and Pluto in days, Hawking said. "The idea behind this innovation is to have the nanocraft ride on the light beam.

The world-renowned physicist explained that the human race - much like Star Trek - has to “boldly go where no one has gone before” if it wants to continue on for another million years, he said.

"Maybe if all goes well, sometime a little after the middle of the century, we'll have our first picture of another planet that may be life-bearing orbiting the nearest star,” said Pete Worden, the project’s executive director and former director of NASA’s Ames Research Center. 

SOURCE  CCTV Plus

By  33rd Square	Embed