News Makers: Weightlessness Will Be Bliss: Hawking

Astrophysicist Stephen Hawking, who has been confined to a wheelchair for most of his adult life, expects weightlessness to feel like “bliss” when he goes on a “zero-gravity” flight today aboard a refitted jet.

“For someone like me whose muscles don’t work very well, it will be bliss to be weightless,” he said.

Hawking, 65, who has Lou Gehrig’s disease, will be the first person with a disability to fly on one of the flights offered by space tourism company Zero Gravity Corp.

Flying from Florida’s Kennedy Space Center, the jet creates the experience of microgravity in 25-second bursts of steep plunges over the Atlantic Ocean.

Normally, the plane conducts 10 to 15 plunges, but on Hawking’s trip, the jet will make a single plunge. Other plunges will be made only after doctors and nurses who are accompanying the astrophysicist on the ride have made sure he is enjoying it.

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