I am writing a story about a person who gets transported to an advanced civilization, he spends much of his time traveling between societies far in advance of our own. There are many problems, but if we cannot get our shit together while we are in one place how are we going to survive in many. It is much cheaper to get this world right with us here than to move our civilization to another world. We would have to take everything, I mean everything with us. Consider that most of our body mass is foreign material from Nature that helps us deal with our environment. If we change the environment then what happens to our being, our bodies. We do not have the understanding to do this and remain what we are, and I do not think we are mentally capable of dealing with any differences we would have to put up with to live off planet. Think about how we are connected to the Earth and the processes upon and within it.

Good.

But, what gives us the 'right' to colonize Mars. Humankind has a horrible relationship to colonialization. Think about it. Something(s) or someone(s) will be suppressed and oppressed for the sake of human survival. We all cheer when we watch Independence Day and see Will Smith punch the alien and say "Welcome to Earth" and then in the next breath we celebrate the idea of doing to Mars what that alien intended to Earth. Very interesting creatures, are we not? No, we have no right to colonize another planet. We'll destroy the Moon, using it's oxygen, in launching vehicles from there to Mars, making it a wasteland. And inevitably do to Mars what we have done to Earth. I recommend that everyone watch The Planet of the Apes.

I'm calling bullshit on that builder race.

I like the idea of terra forming Mars.

Well, we're fucked, then. Because we don't have a way to leave earth. Not for long and not for many. Five guys and two women in the ISS isn't going to save the species.

All that I can say, is...I hope he is wrong! But, he could be "right!' I have not moved the needle, even a millisecond, on the current earthy political issue, and I sure don"t intent to worry over, 'end of world problem'...there is a limit on how much I can worry about himanity! Stephen can keep watch, though!

Probably true. But, the difficulties of prolonged space travel are so difficult, I don't believe that any significant deep space travel is or will be feasible.

After proving our awful stewardship of this planet, we certainly don't deserve any more planets to ruin !

What's the point if we're just going to destroy another planet? Besides, just like Neil Degrasse Tyson has said already, if we had the resources to cultivate another planet for our species then we could turn this planet around. I'm assuming we would want to take a substantial amount of people with "us". It would only be doctors and engineers etc etc. We would need the technology to get to an outer planet first of all. We sure as hell aren't making it to another planet in a Goldilocks zone. The closest one is 12 light years away. That's 72 trillion miles away and would take 260,000 years to get there.....if we leave NOW. So why don't we focus on turning this planet around into a more habitable planet?

I know he is all that and like a mother teresa of science but... Will he survive if he leaves his chair? I know I am going to hell for the question. I know.

I agree. We will need to go out in the universe to keep our species from extinction. We will either destroy ourselves, our environment, face a biological virus that we cannot survive, or we may face the same kind of extinction level event from a comet or a meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs.

He's probably right, because we humans are fucking up the Earth. Climate change is very real, but there are too many closed minded fools that don't care to do anything about it.

I don't see us making it far enough into the future to have a chance to colonize other worlds; from the technological advances necessary for such a venture, to finding a suitable place to hang our hats, I expect that before we can leave we will have either blown ourselves into dust or perhaps finally pay the cost for having shit on the planet for so long by way of famine, plague, etc.

He is right. The earth will come to an end because of the finite lifespan of our sun.

Then there are all the other points he went on about that could come true.

I am a fan of Stephen Hawking and admire him and he has his opinions just as we all do. (IMHO)

Yeah, we have like 4 billion years - I doubt if we will get it together though. And I wonder who gets to go if they do. The way we are going, we will probably be extinct long before the deadline.

We're doomed.
We're DOOOOMMED!!!

He's right. We'll also have to leave the universe.