Right this second? Maybe not maybe yes. How do you know how relevant his theories are to for example spotting extrasolar planets? I get the basics but that high tech stuff goes over my head.

and what is 'awhile'? gps came into physical existence around 50 years after eistein's theories of time and space. is it awhile or not? certainly fifty years means in our lifetime.

discoveries are made base on what we previously discovered. some stuff becomes usable by the common men right now some takes ages. but before we go into and discover something we can't be sure how useful it is for so called common man

Oh noes! Someone bad-mouths Hawking on the web! Surely this is the end!

As a member of science and space-advocacy groups, I see far worse claims than this every day. Nothing to get upset about. Short and near-sighted kids are hardly news worthy. ;)

their assessment of understanding space neglects the simple fact that the 1969 moon landing happened with less technology found in a mobile phone.

that said the necessity to create and discover new forms of long distance communication, along with highly resistant materials, and of course advanced computing pushed technology forward to a point where we have devices that can do pretty much anything we want them too.

and as for the whole 'derp they're teenagers' technically I still am a teenager at 19, and I have a far broader mind than that, even when I was 14/15 I still maintained respect for the advancement of science. oh well, some people would rather just sit in ignorance than actually try and learn things.

Yeah, that's the stuff all right ;)

Without science, there is no scientific gain, and there is no ground for new applied science, meaning technology will fall behind.

If you postpone Hawking's research, you postpone what it may blossom into - for sake of argument, let's say it will result in a teleporter (I have no clue why, I just think it's appropriate, cause a teleporter would be fucking sweet!).

Based on current science, a teleporter is possible but extremely limited (I remember reading they managed to teleport a gas by a whole 3 centimeters). If you allow the scientists behind this research to continue, we might have a fully functional teleporter capable of teleporter people in, let's say 50 years. If you postpone the research for until the economy is fully stable once again, the future of technology seems vague, and a teleporter might first be available after 50 or perhaps even more years from when they get to pick up on their project again.

the worst scenario for preventing science is a dark age of technology where it doesn't moveb forward and is fragile enough it might deteriorate at a rapid speed. Science is what modern society runs on, no matter what people would like to think.

Hmm, aren't all americans a bit geographically challenged? Their nation has basically built itself into a bubble where seemingly no one has any reason to venture or know anything outside their own country? I head that the majority of Americans don't have a passport (though I can't remember if that's true or not) and basically when you are not being challenged to think differently or you can avoid confrontation with issues not relevant to your own interests (with even interests being very narrow because of your surroundings) you develop into a narrow-minded being. Some teenagers thankfully notice this and aren't satisfied with having opinions fed to them, instead they try to think for themselves and try to educate themselves.

I guess all I'm trying to say is that you're more or less the product of your surroundings, at least a big part of you is, and that when you lack certain stimulants you don't have the resources necessary to form what we would think of as an educated opinion.

Nah, those two aren't the future of America.

I'm willing to stretch it as far as the future of the burger grill at Joe's in downtown Jerkwater.

Facebook, still without a dislike button to coddle its users.

Future gas station attendants?

Maybe a magic one that transfers the whole body intact, but wouldn't the one that picks people apart and rebuilds them somewhere else be like killing the original guy and making a clone of him elsewhere? The clone wouldn't know any better and would probably think he's the original guy, but the original guy would actually be dead (though with a clone around, would anyone else care).

An actual teleporter would indeed kill the original and make a copy. The Star Trek Transporter or the Doctor Who Transmat doesn't but then that's fiction.

Interesting fact for you - the GPS Block I satellites (the prototype satellites for the GPS sat-nav system) had a hardware switch to turn off the relativistic effects required to correct the onboard clock corrections due to them being at a different altitude to the ground-based GPS receivers. Because they'd never flown clocks in space that had that level of accuracy before. Nowadays, GPS is the premier experiment that confirms GR. Without an understanding of GR, there would be no GPS positioning system, the errors would be too large, several hundred metres.

I love this post.