BBC Studios/ Nick GavenProf Brian Cox is a physicist and musicianProf Brian Cox says he’s ready to boldly move the place no British TV presenter has long gone ahead of.“I’ve now not but raised the finances, or satisfied any individual to provide me a price tag,” he explains.But when Elon Musk, the landlord of US aerospace corporate SpaceX got here calling, then “I’d say… good, up we move!”, he provides.Travelling to house is one thing lets all be doing someday, consistent with Prof Cox, the United Kingdom’s best-known particle physicist. Talking forward of his new BBC Two collection concerning the Sun Machine, he says he desires the human race to move additional.He says advances being made at some business house corporations way there’s a risk that lets change into a multi-planetary and interstellar civilisation.
SpaceXJared Isaacman steps out of the hatch initially of the primary personal spacewalkOne one who has crushed Prof Cox into house is billionaire businessman Jared Isaacman and the group of SpaceX’s Polaris Daybreak.Isaacman made historical past previous this month through changing into the primary personal sector astronaut to stroll in house. The United States house company Nasa mentioned the venture represented “a large jump ahead” for the industrial house trade.Prof Cox believes this mixed manner – a collaboration between govt businesses, like Nasa, and the non-public corporations, like SpaceX – is a great factor. It is necessary, he provides, to have affordable, dependable get entry to to house.“I truly am of the view that our civilisation must extend past our planet for such a lot of causes,” he says. 
BBC Studios/Fleur BoneMetallic frost caps the mountains of Venus. It’s made up of lead sulphide, which Prof Cox holds in his hand The aerospace corporate, Blue Foundation – brainchild of billionaire and Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos – is already envisioning a long run the place other people reside and paintings in house, with industries perceived as destructive to Earth moved into the cosmos.There are restricted assets at the Earth and harm is being achieved to the planet via “civilisation’s thirst and requirement for extra assets”, says Prof Cox, making it crucial we glance against changing into a multi-planetary civilisation.Tapping into the universe’s assets, like mining asteroids, would possibly sound like science fiction however, he says, “it is extraordinarily essential that we do it, and as temporarily as imaginable”.Whether or not there’s the political talent to reach it as a civilisation is any other topic, he says – however he believes we’ve got an obligation to discover our galaxy, the Milky Manner, which is stuffed with masses of billions of stars.There may be lots to discover in our Sun Machine on my own. In addition to the Solar there are 8 planets, 5 formally named dwarf planets, masses of moons, hundreds of comets, and greater than one million asteroids.
BBC Studios/Zach Levi-RodgersThere is not any frontier right here on Earth anymore, says Prof CoxIf pressured to danger a bet, Prof Cox says it’s possible that we’re the one complex civilisation within the Milky Manner this present day, and perhaps the one person who has ever existed within the galaxy.“If that is true, regardless that, then our growth past this planet turns into a duty. As a result of if we do not do this, no one’s doing it. So if we do not move out to the celebs, no one’s ever going out to the celebs on this galaxy.“So it turns into of overriding significance to start to take the ones first steps.”Mars and the Moon are the one two puts Prof Cox may just believe seeing anyone consult with and start to construct an enduring presence in his lifetime.In spite of asteroids the scale of stadiums hurtling throughout the Sun Machine, he believes the most important present risk to Earth is in reality its human population.“If the rest’s going to ruin us, it is almost definitely us,” he says – even supposing having mentioned that, he says the opportunity of an asteroid hitting the Earth is now being taken extra significantly than when he first began making TV programmes greater than 15 years in the past.“In the future, we are going to have to transport one,” he says.
NasaEuropa is locked through gravity to Jupiter and orbits the planet each 3 and a half of days For his new collection, Prof Cox explores occasions taking place in house by the use of the newest missions. In October, Nasa’s Europa Clipper, might be surroundings off on a five-and-a-half-year adventure to Jupiter – to discover whether or not the planet’s icy moon, Europa, may just harbour prerequisites appropriate for lifestyles. Scientists imagine Europa has liquid water within the shape of a big saltwater ocean underneath its icy crust.However what may lifestyles on Europa seem like if the prerequisites have been proper?“It’s going to be easy lifestyles,” says Prof Cox. “It’s going to be single-celled lifestyles at the easiest, or one thing that appears slightly like single-celled lifestyles… We are not anticipating multi-cellular lifestyles there – partially as it took see you later to broaden right here on Earth.”
BBC Studios/ Nick GavenWhat may well be at the horizon for our civilisation?It’s been greater than 10 years since Sir David Attenborough named Prof Cox as his herbal successor. So may just he be able to take at the mantle?“I’m completely thrilled that he doesn’t desire a successor this present day,” says Prof Cox, “he’s making extra programmes than I do.”On the subject of Sir David’s occupation, he says, it isn’t imaginable to be successful any individual who has invented the shape.“You’ll be able to’t truly have a successor as a result of he used to be the primary to do it. It’s virtually like announcing: ‘Who would be the successor to Neil Armstrong as the primary human to set foot at the Moon?’”Sun Machine begins on Monday 7 October at 21:00 BST on BBC Two and BBC iPlayer.
