In April, 2008, Hawking came to Washington, D.C., to honor NASA on their 50th birthday. He presented a new speech entitled, “Why We Should Go Into Space.” That’s the jumping off point for the video. We wrote it. My friend Craig Duff produced it. Tara created some cool graphics, including the exploding Earth animation, and that ridiculous driver’s license for Homo sapiens.

As if to add an exclamation point to its message, between the time the video was finished and the time it was uploaded, a mile-wide hunk of rock and/or ice slammed into Jupiter. Check out the coverage by Bad Astronomer Phil Plait.

As I said in the Time piece (pun intended), “If that had happened here, you probably wouldn’t be watching online video right now.”

Shaha is a physics teacher at an inner city school in the UK, and also a TV producer who specializes in science programs.  The film was made to be broadcast on Teachers TV (a UK cable channel) but it’s also available online in excellent HD quality – and can even be shared and embedded, as seen below (you can view a larger size if you click over to his site).

The website also contains “a collection of thoughts from leading scientists, public figures …and you.”  Add your thoughts on why science is important and they’ll appear alongside the thoughts of Bad Astronomer Phil Plait, SETI’s Seth Shostak, LabLit’s Jennifer Rohn, and many others.

Visit Alom’s YouTube Channel – sciencefilms – to see more answers to the question “Why is Science Important?” as well as some of his other films.

Links:
Why is Science Important?
Bad Astronomy blog
SETI
Seth Shostak
LabLit