A Small Step for Man, a Giant Leap for Stephen Hawking
AS the world’s most famous astrophysicist, he knows more about what goes on among the stars than any man alive. But until now not even Stephen Hawking really knew what it was like to fly in space.
Late last night the professor overcame that challenge when he took part in a zero-gravity ride, floating weightlessly in the cabin of a specially modified aircraft 32,000ft above the earth.
Leaving his wheelchair behind, Professor Hawking
who is almost totally paralysed by motor neurone disease experienced several 25-second bursts of weightlessness as the Boeing 727 made a series of rollercoaster manoeuvres to simulate the zero- gravity experience.
“It was amazing,” said Professor Hawking, who already has plans to go into space itself. “The zero-g bit was wonderful I could have gone on and on. Space, here I come.” Peter Diamandis, chairman of Zero Gravity Corp, the company that owns the jet, said during two of the plunges Professor Hawking made two flips like “a gold-medal gymnast”.
When asked if he was enjoying himself, “his eyebrows went up and there was a big grin, meaning ‘yes’ he was grinning the whole time,” said Mr Diamandis, who accompanied Prof Hawking on the flight.
During the two-hour flight, the jet made a total of eight parabolic climband- dive manoeuvres for Professor Hawking, his doctors and nurses and two dozen other passengers.
Last night’s flight from Cape Canaveral, Florida, was a dress rehearsal for a very much more ambitious project. Professor Hawking spoke last year of his desire to go into space
and Virgin boss Sir Richard Branson has agreed to fix it for him.
Sir Richard plans to provide suborbital rides to paying passengers as early as 2009, and has promised to arrange a Virgin Galactic flight for Professor Hawking. The spacecraft, launched from a mother shipat 50,000ft, will soar to a height of 360,000ft and reach a speed of 2,500mph.
Before the flight, Professor Hawking said he wanted to increase public interest in space as he believes humans’ survival depends on going into space.
“I think life on Earth is at an increased risk of being wiped out by disaster,” he said. “I think the human race has no future if it doesn’t go into space.”
Professor Hawking, 65, Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at the University of Cambridge and the author of the best-selling A Brief History Of Time, has done ground-breaking work on black holes and the origins of the universe.
He is the first person with a disability to experience the flight by Zero Gravity, which has flown about 2,700 people out of Florida since late 2004.
His personal physicians were on hand during the flight and Professor Hawking was attached to heart, blood pressure and oxygen- measuring monitors during the flight.
Dr Edwin Chilvers, the professor’s personal physician, said medical equipment sufficient fora mini-intensive care unit had been on board in case of any problems.
As a further safety precaution, Zero Gravity founders, Mr Diamandis and Byron Lichtenberg, were on either side of Hawking so they could lower him to the ground gently at the end of the parabolic dive from 32,000ft to 24,000ft.
Passengers normally pay Pounds 2,758 for the ride, although that fee was waived for the professor.
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