On Thursday, April 26, 2007 Stephen Hawking, the 65-year-old Lucasian Professor of Mathematics at Cambridge University who has done ground-breaking work on cosmic black holes and the origins of the universe, became the first person with a disability to experience weightlessness in a zero-gravity inducing flight.
He experienced microgravity weightlessness on one of the jet flights, such as are regularly laid on, as a commercial enterprise, by the Florida based Zero Gravity Corp. These flights deliberately feature the execution of parabolic plunges that allow passengers to experience weightlessness for bursts of 25 seconds. Each "parabolic" manoeuvre typically begins with a sharp climb to around 32,000 feet, followed by a rapid 8,000-foot descent.
He experienced microgravity weightlessness on one of the jet flights, such as are regularly laid on, as a commercial enterprise, by the Florida based Zero Gravity Corp. These flights deliberately feature the execution of parabolic plunges that allow passengers to experience weightlessness for bursts of 25 seconds. Each "parabolic" manoeuvre typically begins with a sharp climb to around 32,000 feet, followed by a rapid 8,000-foot descent.
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