Hawking in Space?

COSMOLOGIST Stephen Hawking soared into weightlessness today on a zero gravity flight that allowed the leading expert on gravity to briefly escape from his wheelchair.



"It was amazing ... I could have gone on and on," Hawking, 65, said after riding for two hours on a modified jet that flew a rollercoaster trajectory to create the impression of microgravity.

"Space, here I come" he said at NASA's Kennedy Space Centre in Florida. The British professor, who has spent most of his career studying black holes and gravity, hopes the flight will be a prelude to a 2009 voyage into space.



Source: Hawking Escapes Gravity


All I can say is WOW. That's awesome. Dr. Stephen Hawking is among the smartest men alive and many people know his contributions to the study of space. He's been famous for quite some time. One thing to note though, is that he is almost entirely paralyzed and has to use a computer in order to speak to others. This fact has pushed Hawking to want to venture into outer space. This trip that he's just gone on is seen as the first step to an eventual trip to outer space.

Going so fast that he was able to get about four minutes of no gravity really lifted Dr. Hawking spirits and has made him excited about the possibility of venturing into the stars that he has only talked and theorized about. I can't wait to see what happens next.