Stephen Hawking Accepts Prestigious NSS Award on Society’s 25th Anniversary

NSS Executive Director Paul Damphousse (carrying Heinlein Award) and Dr. Stephen Hawking. Photo: Lee Ray. Courtesy nss.org

(Washington, D.C., March 28) The National Space Society (NSS) is pleased to announce Dr. Stephen Hawking as the 14th recipient of NSS’s Robert A. Heinlein Memorial Award. The award was presented to Dr. Hawking at aspecial ceremony at the Cooks Branch Conservancy in Montgomery, Texas on Wednesday, March 28 and is given in recognition of his outstanding and continuing public efforts in support of human space development and settlement.

“I believe that the long-term future of the human race must be in space,” says Hawking. “It will be difficult enough to avoid disaster on planet Earth in the next hundred years, let alone the next thousand, or million. The human race shouldn’t have all its eggs in one basket, or on one planet. Let’s hope we can avoid dropping the basket until we have spread the load.”

Read full press release. Also see Stephen Hawking 25-minute video: Why We Should Go into Space (with transcript).