This does not strike me as a particularly good idea:
Stephen Hawking plans to make a zero gravity flight:
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. - Renowned theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking, who authored the best-selling book, "A Brief History of Time," soon will experience a brief history with weightlessness.
Hawking, who uses a wheelchair and is almost completely paralyzed by amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig's disease, plans to go on a weightless flight on April 26, officials at the flight operator said Thursday.The flight, operated by Zero Gravity Corporation, a Fort Lauderdale, Fla.-based space tourism and entertainment company, will take off and return to a landing strip at the Kennedy Space Center.
"As someone who has studied gravity and black holes all of my life, I am excited to experience first hand weightlessness and a zero-gravity environment," Hawking said in a statement.
The modified Boeing 727 generally soars to 32,000 feet at a sharp angle and then plunges 8,000 feet so passengers can experience 25-second snippets of zero gravity during the descent. As the plane climbs, passengers experience 25 seconds of being pushed down hard, as they feel 1.8 times the normal pull of the Earth.
Zero Gravity CEO Peter Diamandis said assistants will be onboard to help Hawking.
A 2G climb followed by zero gravity is hard on a healthy body. (They don't call it the "vomit comet" for nothing.) Such a flight will put much more stress a body that is almost completely paralyzed. Communication and emergency medical care will also be problematic under these conditions.
I hope it works out well for him anyway. The flight is scheduled for April 26th. That allows Hawking time to train and prepare for at least some aspects of the flight. Assuming that Hawking gets through the flight without incident, he will certainly have a unique, groundbreaking achievement to celebrate.
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