Are we alone? Yes

Professor Hawkins said we are making a mistake looking for alien intelligence. If we find them, or they find us, chances are, they'll crush/exterminate us. Is there any scenario where a more sophisticated civilisation encounters a less sophisticated civilisation and says: "Hey, how can we help you?"

Even we find a planet a gazillion light years away that could support life, we'd never get there.
That said, the research is probably worth doing...although where the money's going to come from I re-he-heally don't know.

clipped from news.yahoo.com NASA's new planet-hunting Kepler telescope launched into space late Friday, lighting up the night sky above Florida as it began an ambitious mission to seek out Earth-like planets around alien stars. Kepler blasted off atop a Delta 2 rocket from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida at 10:49 p.m. EST (0349 March 7 GMT). The $600 million spacecraft will gaze at a single region of our Milky Way galaxy for at least three years in a planetary census that, scientists say, could fundamentally alter humanity's view of its role in the universe. "At the end of those three years, we'll be able to answer, 'Are there other worlds out there or are we alone?'" said William Borucki, Kepler's principal investigator at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., before launch.