http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100425/sc_afp/scienceastronomyextraterrestrialhawking

On the probability of alien life existing, he says: "To my mathematical brain, the numbers alone make thinking about aliens perfectly rational.

"Such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and colonise whatever planets they can reach," warned Hawking.

So if the great man says we shouldn't bother, why even bother with this space nonsense?

As far as I can see:
Every planet found so far is a shithole
There may be lots of planets, but gazillions of miles away
If we actually get to one a gazillion miles away, chances are it'll be a shithole too
(What would make a planet BETTER than Earth anyway? Slightly tastier wildlife? Freshwater seas? Less painful rocks to walk on?)

If we head off into space, we'll just run into hungry nomadic aliens

And before you say "but the space program gave us Teflon, and….pens that write upside down" can I just point out these were mase from substances on Earth. I don't think we've found a single, useful, new material so far. Please correct me if wrong though.

So I'm with Hawkins – let's just stay put and keep our heads down.

"What would make a planet BETTER than Earth anyway"

I'd quite like one with no uphills but lots of downs please.

I'm with you there!
Perhaps there is a DH planet, twinned with a Climbers planet that has ups but no downs

let's just stay put and keep our heads down

That sounds like a great idea. Don't we have enough to sort out on this planet before we go looking for more. Like, say, poverty, disease, climate change, etc, etc, etc…

Such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and colonise whatever planets they can reach

Mr Hawking is no better qualified to speculate about the nature of hypothetical advanced alien civilisations than literally anyone else on earth.

so, there's pikey aliens who come to other peoples planets nick all the good stuff and leave a mess behind.

Do all the other aliens tut, shake their heads and suggest nasty 'solutions' to the problem?

Let's hope that when they land, they just want to eat the brains of the really clever ones and turn the rest of us into sex slaves. I can just picture Hawkings tapping out "no, no, please don't eat me!" on his speak 'n' spell 😀

Yes, eating. That's the problem with Aliens coming here. They'd do what every superior species does to it's victims, i.e. they'd eat us.

I hope they only eat organic.

I'd be safe 🙂

We wouldn't have that fancy pen (instead of a pencil) for writing upside-down if it wasn't for space exploration, surely that alone is worth the trillions invested?

If they were vegetarians they would only eat Swedes.

I've been to the Isle of Wight. They didn't seem that threatening.

Mobiles, computers, tv and internet?

I think we should be able to explore as the Earth will not sustain us forever and we should improve our technologyand defence.

Besdies this question was only asked a week or 2 ago!

Aaah but Hawko hadn't spoken then, he'll turn you science junkies round, you'll see!

Mr Hawking is no better qualified to speculate about the nature of hypothetical advanced alien civilisations than literally anyone else on earth.

Errrr….he's actually been on The Simpsons yeah?! That makes him uber qualified for pretty much anything. Besides, have you seen that computer he is attached to? He must be like a super cool cyborg or some shit

the Earth will not sustain us forever

Actually, there is no reason it couldn't, provided we all lived a bit more reasonably.

Or at least until the sun exploded.