World famous British physicist, Stephen Hawking, 65, who is diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's Disease (ALS), took his first zero gravity trip to space on Thursday. He says that it was a great experience.
Hawking, an cosmologist and mathematics professor at the University of Cambridge , has been suffering from ALS for over 4 decades. He has also done a great deal of work on the field of black holes, as demonstrated in his bestselling book, A Brief History of Time.
This was a great experience for the scientist, for the first time in 40 years, he was loose of his wheelchair and communication device, he bounced up and down freely and unleashed.
Hawking said before the flight: "Many people have asked me why I am taking this flight. I am doing it for many reasons." First of all, I believe that life on Earth is at an ever increasing risk of being wiped out by a disaster such as sudden global warming, nuclear war, a genetically engineered virus, or other dangers. I think the human race has no future if it doesn't go into space. I therefore want to encourage public interest in space."
His flight consisted of 25 second plunges of microgravity, called parabolas, over the Atlantic Ocean. This flight was operated by Zero Gravity Corp., a space tourism company. Normally, the flight costs of $3,750, but Hawking took the ride for free.
This process is used by NASA and ESA to train their astronauts, and in the movie "Apollo 13", they used the same process to shoot the zero gravity scenes.
All in all, Hawking had a successful flight, and has continued to be a great inspiration to scientists, people with disablities, and everyone else in the world.
This article is from: http://www.cnn.com/2007/TECH/space/04/26/hawking.flight.ap/index.html
For more information: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6594821.stm
Picture: Photobucket.com
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