Professor Stephen Hawking believes the future of the human race depends on our abilities to explore space, the Daily Mail reported.
During a tour of London's Science Museum, the 73-year-old said that landing on the moon gave us new perspectives of life on Earth, and this outlook must develop if we are to survive.
He also said aggression should be weeded out of the human race and replaced by empathy to avoid a major nuclear war ending civilization as we know it.
Adaeze Uyanwah, 24, from Palmdale, California, won the tour after producing a blog and video describing a 'perfect day' in the UK capital.
She asked Professor Hawking what human shortcomings he would alter, and which virtues he would enhance if this was possible.
He replied: "The human failing I would most like to correct is aggression. It may have had survival advantage in caveman days, to get more food, territory or partner with whom to reproduce, but now it threatens to destroy us all.
"A major nuclear war would be the end of civilization, and maybe the end of the human race.
"The quality I would most like to magnify is empathy. It brings us together in a peaceful, loving state.'
The professor added that human space exploration was 'life insurance' for the human race and must continue.
"Sending humans to the moon changed the future of the human race in ways that we don't yet understand," he said.
"It hasn't solved any of our immediate problems on planet Earth, but it has given us new perspectives on them and caused us to look both outward and inward.
"I believe that the long term future of the human race must be space and that it represents an important life insurance for our future survival, as it could prevent the disappearance of humanity by colonizing other planets.
Source: MENA