YEREVAN, AUGUST 16, ARMENPRESS. Have you ever imagined that a day will come when manned flights to the Moon will become as usual and routine as Yerevan-Moscow or Paris-New York flights? What about a day when mankind will have to abandon Earth to find a new home among the stars in order to preserve its existence? These once seemingly sci-fi ideas are being discussed more and more among scientific community.

The fourth edition of the Starmus Festival was a unique platform for leading specialists to discuss these ideas.

Starmus IV: Life and the Universe

STARMUS IV festival took place in 2017 in Trondheim, Norway. The theme of the fourth festival was: Life and the Universe, and the festival featured eleven Nobel Prize laureates and many astronomers, biologists, chemists, economists, astronauts and artists.  Over 2300 delegates attended Starmus IV in Trondheim. Among the Starmus IV delegates were space explorers Charlie Duke who spoke on the legacy of Apollo 16, Sandra Magnus who gave an account of her experience during her missions, Harrison Schmidt, from Apollo 17, the last mission to the Moon, who offered insights into future space missions and Terry Virts who discussed the perspectives on Earth and our place in the Universe. The festival also featured film director and producer Oliver Stone, musicians Steve Vai, Grace Potter, Nuno Bettancourt, Anne Brun, The Pineapple Tree, Jennie Abrahamson and DJ BK Duke and Larry King. 

The main speaker at the event, just like in the previous two festivals, was the science rock star Stephen Hawking.

Three legendary astronaut-moonwalkers on one stage

Apollo 11 astronaut Buzz Aldrin, Apollo 16 astronaut Charlie Duke and Harrison Schmitt, from Apollo 17, the last mission to the Moon, appeared for the first time on one stage at the panel discussion on their experience on the Earth’s satellite.

The three American astronauts to have walked on the Moon share their experience

Neil deGrasse Tyson himself was moderating the discussion. Charlie Duke joked that after landing on the surface of the Moon he exclaimed “fantastic” about 900 times. “When you look out at the bright Lunar landscape which is mostly grey, and you look up in the horizon and there’s a sharp horizon break between the Moon surface and the darkness of the sky, and you look up and there’s just this jet-black sky, what a contrast, you never get over it..you say I’m on the Moon’...”

Harrison Schmitt, the only scientist to have walked on the Moon, spoke about the importance of sending humans to Mars.

“In the long-range, Mars is a clear objective for humanity, with long-range being this century probably. Now the question becomes what is the fastest and most expeditious and less-risk way of doing that, and I think it is going to be by way of the Moon. I think we will have to get two or three generations of young people involved in this to learn how to deal with the risks of deep space, which are very different from the risks of the near-Earth orbit. And that’s why the Moon becomes so important. Buzz indicated that there are many engineering and operational issues that can be dealt with and learned about three days away on the Moon rather than nine months away if you use chemical propulsion. So the Moon I think is clearly a critical path of getting human-beings to Mars and getting them there permanently,” Schmitt said.

Duke shared Schmitt’s view and said that everything must begin from the Moon, by developing systems which are renewable and long-lasting. “When we get to Mars we’ll essentially be on our own. When you say “Hello Houston” from up there, Houston won’t be able to answer for the next ten to fifteen minutes.” 

Buzz Aldrin, the second man to have walked the surface of the Moon, was participating in the discussion remotely from his home in Florida, wearing a shirt that said “Get Your Ass to Mars”. On the path of getting to Mars, Aldrin highlighted the need for establishing cooperation between countries who have the capacity.

Mankind is doomed to leave planet Earth

Mankind must leave planet Earth in the future: Stephen Hawking said in his remarks at the fourth Starmus.

He called for leading nations to send astronauts to the Moon by 2020.

They should also aim to build a lunar base in 30 years' time and send people to Mars by 2025, Hawking said as quoted by the BBC.

Prof Hawking said that the goal would re-ignite the space programme, forge new alliances and give humanity a sense of purpose.

Hawking delivering remarks

"Spreading out into space will completely change the future of humanity," he said.

"I hope it would unite competitive nations in a single goal, to face the common challenge for us all. "A new and ambitious space programme would excite (young people), and stimulate interest in other areas, such as astrophysics and cosmology".

He addressed the concerns of those arguing that it would be better to spend our money on solving the problems of this planet along with a pointed criticism of then-US President Donald Trump.

"I am not denying the importance of fighting climate change and global warming, unlike Donald Trump, who may just have taken the most serious, and wrong, decision on climate change this world has seen," he said.

Prof Hawking explained that human space travel is essential for the future of humanity precisely because the Earth was under threat from climate change as well as diminishing natural resources.

"We are running out of space and the only places to go to are other worlds. It is time to explore other solar systems. Spreading out may be the only thing that saves us from ourselves. I am convinced that humans need to leave Earth," the Cambridge University theoretical physicist explained.

Prof Hawking said that there was no long-term future for our species staying on Earth: it would either be hit by an asteroid again or eventually engulfed by our own Sun. He added that travelling to distant worlds would "elevate humanity".

"Whenever we make a great new leap, such as the Moon landings, we bring people and nations together, usher in new discoveries, and new technologies," he continued.

"To leave Earth demands a concerted global approach, everyone should join in. We need to rekindle the excitement of the early days of space travel in the sixties."

He said that the colonisation of other planets was no longer science fiction, though he did pay tribute to the genre in his closing remarks.

There are extraterrestrial apocalypses, such as asteroid impacts “guaranteed by the laws of physics and probability.” On Earth, Hawking cited melting polar ice caps, loss of animal life and dwindling physical resources, among other ill portents.

“The Earth is becoming too small for us,” he said. 

At a neighborly 4.37 light-years away, the planet Proxima B in the Alpha Centauri system is a promising target, Hawking said — except that with current technology, interstellar travel is “utterly impractical.”

“The human race has existed as a separate species for about 2 million years. Civilization began about 10,000 years ago, and the rate of development has been steadily increasing,” Hawking said as quoted by the Washington Post. “If humanity is to continue for another million years, our future lies in boldly going where no one else has gone before.

The Spacewalker

Starmus IV also featured the European premiere of The Spacewalker -  a Russian historical drama film about cosmonaut Alexei Leonov, the first human to perform a spacewalk. Leonov himself served as a consultant for the film. 

From Science to Music and Film: Laureates of the Stephen Hawking Medal for Science Communication

Under the name of the greatest scientist of the 20th and early 21st centuries, Stephen Hawking, and sponsored by Starmus, the Stephen Hawking Science Medal is a prestigious award which recognizes the merit of popular science on an international level.

The Stephen Hawking Medal winners at the fourth Starmus included American astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson. The organizers of the festival noted that Tyson’s “efforts have helped popularize science around the world – bringing new enthusiasm and interest to many disciplines within Science.”

In the film category, the medal was awarded to The Big Bang Theory sitcom, and in arts to French composer Jean-Michel André Jarre.

2017 Stephen Hawking Medal Winners

The astronaut watching the sunrise from the International Space Station

The closing remarks at the festival were delivered by retired American astronaut Terry Virts.

Virts conducted two spaceflights to the ISS aboard the NASA Space Shuttle Endeavour and the Soyuz TMA-15M. He was the commander of the ISS and spent a total of 200 days in space.

He spoke about his days in space and details of the mission. He said that he took more than 300,000 photos in space which were sent to NASA and used for the 2016 IMAX A Beautiful Planet film.

Presenting a spectacular photograph of the sunrise on Earth taken from space, Terry Virts concluded his speech with the following words:

“Life on Earth is not always fun, it’s not great. Everybody is a human being, everybody makes mistakes, everybody has problems. And in the last couple of years, whenever something really bad has happened I can close my eyes and I can kind of go back to space and think of the sunrise or sunset like this and think ‘there’s been a billion of these sunsets before, there’s going to be a billion more in the future, somewhere on Earth right now this is happening, if you’re an astronaut you are lucky enough to see this right now, so whatever is going on here in my life, whatever problems I am having, I can kind of take myself back there and go ‘it’s all going to be ok, no matter how bad things seem, it’s really not going to be that bad in the big picture’. So I guess it is the perspective that it is a big universe, things are going to be ok, they may seem terrible now but the sun will rise again tomorrow, if you are on the space station the sun will rise again in 90 minutes.”

Read also:

A Look Back At First STARMUS Festival

From rhino with spider legs to secrets of black holes: Looking back at STARMUS II Festival

When bright people talk about dark things: retrospective view of Starmus III