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Hawking to Take Zero Gravity Ride
An anonymous reader writes "Well-known cosmologist Stephen Hawking is preparing for a once-in a lifetime trip. His goals are for even higher ground, but right now he's readying for an April zero gravity ride aboard NASA's 'vomit comet'. His ultimate goal is to take a ride on one of Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic flights, and this is a 'test run' for that more rigorous experience. Though complex math ain't no thing for Dr. Hawking, his interests here are purely inspirational. 'Hawking says he wants to encourage public interest in spaceflight, which he believes is critical to the future of humanity. "I also want to show," he said in an e-mail interview, "that people need not be limited by physical handicaps as long as they are not disabled in spirit."'"
Says it all really.
I was under the impression you had to have a certain level of fitness and stamina.
Maybe they figure he has nothing to lose. As long as his head is protected, so what if he breaks his spine or loses a limb: he can't use them anyhow.
Table-ized A.I.
While I respect the man, I'm a bit baffled by things like this "he wants to encourage public interest in spaceflight, which he believes is critical to the future of humanity."
The "future" covers a huge amount of time, so I'm not sure we need to take interest in space exploration *now*. If I was the one spending money, I'll put most of the credit into Drexler's style nanotechnology research, once we 'master' nanotechnology, then tackling space exploration makes sense as either:
- at best a space elevator becomes possible and space access cost are reduced a lot,
- at worst a space elevator is impossible, but the improved materials should still reduce the cost of space access a lot and the payload themselves would be lighter.
Come on, you have to be kidding me. 2g for 25 seconds? That's hardly stressful at all. +2g in an aircraft is a LOT different to doing essentially -1.28g decelerating in a car. For starters, +ve g-forces are a lot easier for the body to tolerate than negative. Fighter pilots do up to about +10g for short periods, but only about -4g. I've done +5g for 30 seconds in an aerobatic spin, and ok, it does feel a bit heavy, but it's no problem. Even with Hawking's condition, 2g certainly shouldn't pose any threat.
And it's not as if the vomit comet suddenly goes from 0g to +2g - the climb-out from the parabolic arc is somewhat gradual, so the occupants settle to the floor fairly gently. Plus I guarantee he will be under someone's close scrutiny, and they'll be sure that he's close to the floor before the end of the ride.
Not totally historically void question, even though it might appear so on the surface.
The story goes that Hawking met the pope and was asked if there was any specific request he might have of the vaticans resources (or something on those lines, I am too lazy to google or wikipedia for the details), and he asked to see the interrogation documents of Galileo Galilei. Apparently as the interrogation was translated to him, Hawking made several sarcastic comments. Not necessarily totally unrelated to this encounter, the catholic church did infact 400-500 years later issue a non-apology-apology to both the sequestering of Galileo Galilei and the burning at the stake of Giordano Bruno, formally overturning at least the judgement against Galilei (not sure about Bruno; whether it was a statement about the doctrine at the time being correctly applied, but deficient; or that the doctrine was falsely applied).