Estate Planning

Could Ex-Pats Be Calling Mars Their Home?

By Hull and Hull LLP

We often think of death in terms of the impact it will have on each of us individually. How my grandparent's death affects my life? Who will I leave my estate to? Stephen Hawking, famed physicist has recently addressed the idea that the human race as a whole may be on the verge of extinction, unless we colonize Space. 

With the planets capable of human inhabitation limited to essentially Mars, our descendants may be actual Martians. And no…I don't mean that we will evolve into green creatures with large eyes and three fingers instead of five. I mean that they might actually live on Mars.   This isn't the first time that the concept of space colonization has come up. Hundred of movies and countless novels have toyed with the idea, to no real impact – even NASA has predicted that a human population will one day exist in Space.

The idea that the Earth may not support the human population indefinitely is not new, other astronomers have suggested that the Earth may indeed end up in a ‘death spiral', ending in incineration of our planet. Rest assured, we have approximately 6 billion years until this is a real possibility. Perhaps the threat of long term survival as a race will spur us into exploration and a global form of Estate Planning.

Have a great weekend,

Nadia Harasymowycz

Full post as published by Toronto Estate Law Blog on August 13, 2010 (boomark / email).