The Sunday Times reports that Steven Hawking is going to take a trip in the “Vomet Comet” to experience up to 25 seconds of weightlessness!
I think that is simply the most wonderful thing that could happen to a man who has studied gravity and physics all his life. He has also been offered a free place on Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic spacecraft and apparently he has been, “smiling a lot this week”, and I look forward to hearing how he got on.
Hawking, 65, will be lifted out of his wheelchair so that he can enjoy zero gravity when the plane takes off from the shuttle landing facility at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
Meanwhile, I wonder what Ryanair would do if they ran spaceflights? They’d certainly place a surcharge on any extra weight, but at the prices required to lift 1KG of weight they better not overesitimate the weight…
Update! I found a photo of his weightless experience here!