US:For almost four decades, astrophysicist Stephen Hawking has studied black holes, exploding stars and the origin of the universe from the confines of his wheelchair.
Last night, the renowned Cambridge professor was taking a bold step of his own by breaking free from the restrictions of his paralysed body and experiencing the weightlessness of space first-hand on a zero-gravity trip over the Atlantic.
His 90-minute adventure aboard a converted airliner nicknamed the Vomit Comet was the achievement of a lifelong ambition for Prof Hawking, who was once told by doctors not to bother finishing his PhD because of his advancing motor neurone disease.
"It will be wonderful," said Prof Hawking, whose best-selling book, A Brief History of Time, popularised the theory of quantum gravity and enlightened the masses about some of the mysteries of the universe. "For someone like me whose muscles don't work very well, it will be bliss to be weightless." The 65-year-old cosmologist, who has spent most of his adult life in a wheelchair and communicates through a synthesised voicebox, was due to be looked after by four doctors and two nurses on the flight from the space shuttle runway at the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida. They were preparing to attach an oxygen sensor to his earlobe, and fix monitors on his arm and chest to check his blood pressure and heart rate during the ascent, and cushion his head.
But unlike many of the other 2,500 commercial passengers who have already experienced weightlessness aboard the plane - also known as G-Force One - and been sick on the plunge back towards Earth after a steep climb to 32,000ft - Prof Hawking was not expecting to need a sick bag. "He's very game for it," said Peter Diamandis, the founder and chief executive of Zero-G, a Las Vegas firm that has offered the adventure for £1,875 (€2,744) a ticket since 2004. The zero gravity effect is produced by the Boeing 727 flying in a series of up to 15 parabolas a flight, rather like a rollercoaster ride. Each nosedive, to about 24,000 feet, produces 25 to 30 seconds of weightlessness before the plane levels out and climbs again. Passengers float in the manner of astronauts in space. - ( Guardian Service)