Must of been fun playing ball with a human being..thats right..

What is this obsession with space?Hawking is obsessed with leaving Earth. I believe Earth is all we have in this univerese. As long as we think we can just leave we will treat this planet like crap.

extraordinarily tenuously related to videogames

@jackal888:

He is obsessed with Earth because the man can see the big picture in the long term.

Even if we treat this planet 100% like the extreme treehuggers want, we'll still destroy it eventually. We are overpopulating it. Bad. Given enough time, we will consume everything. We just don't have enough space.

Combine that with the fact that history has proven that eventually something will happen beyond our control, be it a meteor, a suer-volcano, huge tectonic shifts... that will completely devastate this little rock we call home.

Best not to put all your eggs in one basket, after all. To ensure survival, it's probably best to branch out, and spread ourselves a little thinner over the stretch in the universe.

Besides, it would be a pretty large leap and assumption to believe that this is the only planet in the universe capable of life as we know it. Just do a Google search of "New Earth" to see what they discovered a solar system away from us. A whole planet much like our own that could very well support us, and may be supporting life much like what we see here on this planet.

/man, I am all about the huge posts today

Good for Hawking, I'm a little surprised it took him this long to take a ride on the "Vomit Comet" though.
I'm glad he enjoyed it, since the plane has a well deserved nickname.

@PapaBear: Oh "New Earth" a quick 20 light years away.You call that hope for a new world?Let me get in my spaceship and go there, wait it will take me 400,000 years.Better pack a lunch.
There are answers to the population and ecological problems that we will face.Some genius will be used the solve them sometime in the future.Leaving to go somewhere else is not an option.
The only good space travel and exploration give us are new inventions for us to use on Earth and a clear picture of just how fortunate we are to be on this planet.

"the pilots flew the best parabolas I have experienced in my few trips."

I wish i was smart enough to say that...

Who's that blonde chick on the right?

The great space mummy heist was a success I see. ZING!

Nice to see Hawking had the strength to do the 'thumbs up' in the pic too. :D

@jackal888: You dont seem to be able to comprehend the very real FACT that the Earth will not be around forever. Whether in a hundred thousand years or the next dozen, human beings will tear this wonderful little planet apart. No amount of conservation will be able to stop it in the long run. Spacetravel is not a viable option right now with our current technology, but it never hurts to look ahead.

@jackal888:
Actually he cares very much about our own planet.
"We foresee great perils if governments and society do not take action now to render nuclear weapons obsolete and prevent further climate change."
That was a direct quote from Hawking.
The fact of the matter is, he is a scientist like my father, and these unique people are driven by curiosity and knowledge in there perspective fields.
Do not demonise him for work you know little about, or the man you know nothing about.

It doesn't matter if humanity is going to destroy Earth or not, as the Sun eventually will destroy it as it grows older and expands, boiling the oceans and frying our descendants to a crisp.

So unless we want humanity to die with the sun (well before acutally) then we need to find some other suitable planets with younger suns.

Oh, and finding a way to escape this Universe before it grows too cold from expansion or before it collapses would also be nice.

Hawking is the man. I would give anything to be half as intelligent, and yet still charismatic like that guy. I mean seriously - he's charismatic and he speaks using a machine voice! That's some going!

That lazy punk! They're all getting ready for the flight and posing for photos and he's all like "Nah, I'm just gonna have a snooze. Wake me up when it's over.".

I bet the queues for this thing are longer than Disney Land.

Check out the Lezzers in the centre of the pic! :P

@Raynre: And whether in the next dozen or the next hundred, if this planet gets 'torn apart' we all die, end story. If it's a hundred thousand? Well, never say never, and maybe some totally new science that turns the laws of physics inside-out might be discovered, but otherwise the energy expenditure required to move a significant number of people to another star in any reasonable time is tremendous and probably still unachievable.

If the Earth really became a nuclear wasteland or something (and really it's quite difficult to destroy the planet to the extent that nobody could live here - sure, critical overpopulation could cause problems but the only realistic end solution to that is 'lots of people dying', we couldn't move billions into space), it's perhaps more realistic to think of constructed habitats for small numbers of survivors in this solar system, and/or even the potential to fuck up a second planet so it'd suit us (aka 'terraforming'). Presumably there is sufficient ice and minerals etc on asteroids or whatever.

Global warming and related problems won't make the planet uninhabitable even if we burn all the fossil fuels (which seems depressingly likely). Perhaps millions will die in various floods, hurricanes, other natural disasters, resource wars, poverty/starvation caused by economic effects, etc. - but, though with a lower standard of living, the rest will live on. We thankfully aren't able to turn the planet into Venus.

As long as folks with severe disabilities manage things like this, there is hope for us all.

Yeah, Hawking in space. Whatever. I'm going to be the typical guy here and point out that the blonde astronaut on the right-hand side is pretty hot.

I didn't even notice the genius on the floor.

@dunetiger: yeah. HAwt. Um, so female astronauts are supposed to be unattractive?

@jackal888: clearly you are insipid. Nor do you realize that Dr. Hawking, in space, is free of his gravity shackles. And he is brilliant. Are you upset at this? maybe you should read up on quantum physics and mechanics.

Remember, mother earth doesn't need you, you need her.

I don't know how Hawking can deal with us of lesser intellect... It would never work for me, I'd go insane. I adore Hawking... and @jackal888: That's a very, very funny statement, friend.

@Spare_Change: Not at all. They can be terribly attractive, as aforementioned golden-haired lass quite clearly is. What I said had no intended implicit meaning. I'm just the dude who's going, "Hey, check her out!" haha

@papabear
thanks for the google tip, cool stuff.

One of Professor Hawkings stated intentions for this was to get people interested in space generally and specifically in manned deep space missions.
If Kotaku can hold a topic like this (and get this quality of response) I'd say he's doing quite well.