[prawn]

This isn't a direct comment on Hawking's proposed search, but there are things that would have real value for space exploration and life on Earth - new energy sources or efficiencies, life extension, AI, production methods, etc. If we one day want to send von Neumann probes out, we'll need to master these fields and none would have uses isolated to space exploration either.

Yes, space is vast but once upon a time the ocean was too.