One giant leap for Stephen Hawking

Alan Boyle Science editor • Profile • E-mail

ORLANDO, Fla. - Quadriplegic physicist Stephen Hawking is ready to go where no person with his kind of disability has gone before: into weightlessness, aboard a specially outfitted airplane flying from the runway where space shuttles land.

On the eve of Thursday's scheduled flight, Hawking told NBC News that he saw such adventures as "a first step toward space travel" — not only for him personally, but also for the public at large.

"I think the human race doesn't have a future if it doesn't go into space. I therefore want to encourage public interest in space," he said in his computer-generated voice, responding to questions submitted in advance.

Hawking has become renowned for his theories on black holes, the workings of gravity, the origins of the universe and other mysteries explained in his best-selling book "A Brief History of Time." The 65-year-old Cambridge cosmologist also has coped for decades with a degenerative nerve disease called amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or ALS. He has lost virtually all voluntary movement, except for his facial muscles, and can communicate only through a gesture-controlled computer system.

Significant step toward space
Hawking hopes a successful zero-gravity encounter on Thursday will represent a significant step toward his dream of flying in outer space as early as 2009, aboard a suborbital rocket plane now being built for British billionaire Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic venture. Virgin Galactic's spaceship is a scaled-up version of SpaceShipOne, which won the $10 million Ansari X Prize in 2004 as the first privately developed craft to take humans to outer space.

"I have wanted to fly into space for many years but never imagined it would really be feasible," Hawking explained. "After the X Prize was won, and private spaceflight became possible, I started thinking about it more seriously."

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During the past year, Hawking has been more vocal about his outer-space dream, telling one interviewer that it was his "next goal." In response, Florida-based Zero Gravity Corp. invited him to take a flight on "G-Force One," a Boeing 727 jet that simulates the weightless feeling of space travel by flying a series of roller-coaster parabolas at an altitude of roughly30,000 feet.

Every one of the five millionaires who have flown to the international space station has been on such flights — as have celebrities ranging from moonwalker Buzz Aldrin to lifestyle guru Martha Stewart. The going rate for Zero Gravity's commercial service is $3,500 per person, but the company waived the cost for Hawking and his team.

"When Zero Gravity Corp. offered me this flight, I accepted immediately," Hawking told NBC.

Pioneer for people with disabilities
Hawking will be Zero Gravity's first wheelchair-using passenger, according to the company's chief executive officer, Peter Diamandis. The Federal Aviation Administration only recently approved procedures for providing weightless flights to customers with such disabilities, he explained.

"You're our first pioneer in so many ways," Diamandis told Hawking during a preflight briefing at an Orlando hotel on Wednesday.

Takeoff is scheduled for Thursday afternoon from the Shuttle Landing Facility at NASA's Kennedy Space Center, which has been used for previous Zero Gravity flights as well as shuttle landings.

Hawking told NBC that he expected weightlessness to be a "wonderful" experience. "It has been many years since I've been free of my wheelchair," he said.

However, Thursday's adventure carries medical risks for someone as frail as Hawking.

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