Stephen Hawking Will Travel To Space (skynews.com.au)

Professor Stephen Hawking says he is planning to travel into space on Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic. From a report: The physicist and cosmologist, 75, said he had not expected to have the opportunity to experience space but that the Virgin boss had offered him a seat. Discussing the meaning of happiness on Good Morning Britain, he said: "My three children have brought me great joy. And I can tell you what will make me happy, to travel in space. I thought no one would take me but Richard Branson has offered me a seat on Virgin Galactic, and I said yes immediately."

Comments

Is Hawking up for the rigors of spaceflight?

[xmas2003]

Awesome that Stephen Hawking gets a chance to go into (the edge) of space, but is he up for the rigors of Spaceflight? Zero-G shouldn't be an issue, but some positive G's on the way up and way down. Hopefully this has been thought through ...

Re:Is Hawking up for the rigors of spaceflight?

[Baron_Yam]

With his disease, he should have been dead decades ago. Even without it, I wouldn't have expected him to be around too much longer. If he wants to die unaware after blacking out due to high G acceleration on the off chance he'll get to see the Earth from space and has the opportunity to do it... good for him.

I wouldn't insure him on his trip, but I wouldn't stop him, either.

Re:Is Hawking up for the rigors of spaceflight?

[MobyDisk]

I don't think Virgin Galactic's flight plan involves nearly the kind of g forces one experiences on a rocket. It's basically a plane that goes really really high. Take a look at the flight plan for SpaceShipTwo, which was the previous generation.. (The image came from here)

I really don't know what I'm talking about, so this might be TOTALLY wrong, but: It says it accelerates to 2500mph over 70 seconds. 2500mph divided by 70 seconds, in meters per second, is about 1.5Gs.

Re:Is Hawking up for the rigors of spaceflight?

[TWX]

It has been.

Many years ago Peter Dimandis took Hawking on a ride in a private version of the Vomit Comet, where they flew up really high, put the aircraft into freefall so the occupants would also go into freefall, and then leveled off and flew up again, etc. Same training that is provided to astronauts and is used to test machinery and processes in zero-G where they only need a few minutes of effective 0G.

Diamandis was worried about how Hawking's body would handle it, but apparently Hawking had the time of his life and they made so many passes that they had to stop because they were getting low on fuel, not because Hawking couldn't take it.

While there is probably added risk to Hawking compared to the Vomit Comit, as the G-forces imparted are going to be higher at least on the ascent phase, if they're calculable and can be studied then it may be safe enough.

Re:Is Hawking up for the rigors of spaceflight?

[reboot246]

I think he will be okay. He's a tough old guy who has lived for decades with a disease that would have killed a lesser person. I hope he enjoys every minute he has left before he leaves us for good.

Re:Is Hawking up for the rigors of spaceflight?

[slew]

You are acting like you know what the profile is and just aren't telling us. I'm guessing in reality you have no idea.

FWIW, according to this article SpaceShipTwo riders will experience 3Gs on takeoff and 6Gs on decent.

As a reference point, SpaceShipOne riders experienced about ~5G of deceleration when it re-entered the atmosphere...

Re:Is Hawking up for the rigors of spaceflight?

[kuzb]

Nice try, Nathan.

Good on Mr. Branson

[mykepredko]

I guess you could call this a stunt as Dr. Hawking, at 75 and with his health issues would not be considered a likely astronaut but I think it's great that he is given this opportunity.

Too many people have gone (Arthur C. Clarke as one) that fully expected to experience spaceflight during their lives and it's nice to see Dr. Hawking will get that opportunity.

From somebody hoping that one day their ship will come in and get the same experience.

Re:Good on Mr. Branson

[Tablizer]

at 75 and with his health issues

Since his days are numbered, maybe he figures it's worth the risk, and being the first civilian to die in space maybe has a record-book appeal to it. Go in style. Beats the nursing home.

Re: Good on Mr. Branson

[fnj]

The Challenger's crew died in the explosion while in the earth's atmosphere.

Almost certainly not. The crew cabin remained in one piece, essentially structurally intact and quite possibly pressure-intact, until it struck the water with a 200 g impact. The crew were killed either by depressurization (perhaps) or by the impact with the water (at the latest). During disintegration of the flimsy main vehicle in the air, the crew were subjected to no more than 20 g, unlikely to have mechanically killed, or even severely injured them.

By the way, the big white cloud you saw on breakup was mostly fuel and oxygen vapor, not explosion.

Such Charity

[WrongMonkey]

It is very generous of Richard Branson to offer a free flight on his imaginary spaceship. And to do so in such a discreet manner surely means this is not a ploy get free headlines for his struggling company.

Re:What exactly has he accomplished?

[MightyMartian]

He applied QM to black holes to determine that they inevitably must radiate energy, and thus are finite and will eventually evaporate. Why Hawking Radiation has yet to be observed (darned hard), it's one of the first critical examples of how Quantum Mechanics would effect a Classical system (in this case, a black hole, a singularity born out of General Relativity). So yes, it's pretty darned important.

Re:What exactly has he accomplished?

[pseudofrog]

If nothing else, he's been an effective popularizer of science. A Brief History of Time has been a tremendous success, and it's served as inspiration for many of today's scientists while teaching the public a bit about how the world works. Pretty cool.

Saying he has "a disability" is a massive understatement. The man's body has been effectively useless for decades now, serving only to keep his brain ticking and providing a cumbersome and exhausting means to slowly communicate. But he continues to engage the public and maintain a sense of humor. So that's something.

Sure, he's a celebrity. But he's also done some great things even if you discount all of his scientific accomplishments. He's served well as the face and (robo-)voice of science for a while. I think he's worthy of a short jaunt up to space.

Re:What exactly has he accomplished?

[MightyMartian]

So there was vigorous debate and Hawking was wrong! Wow, that must mean Hawking is totally useless.

As to Hawking radiation, the point wasn't that he was right (he's not actually wholly wrong either), but rather that it was one of the first major attempts to unify QM and GR, to look for a way in which classic and quantum mechanics both can product phenomena. But some other areas in which he has worked are:

Among the myriad other scientific investigations pursued by Hawking over the years are the study of quantum cosmology, cosmic inflation, helium production in anisotropic Big Bang universes, "large N" cosmology, the density matrix of the universe, the topology and structure of the universe, baby universes, Yang-Mills instantons and the S matrix, anti-de Sitter space, quantum entanglement and entropy, the nature of space and time and the arrow of time, spacetime foam, string theory, supergravity, Euclidean quantum gravity, the gravitational Hamiltonian, the Brans-Dicke and Hoyle-Narlikar theories of gravitation, gravitational radiation, holography, time symmetry and wormholes.

From http://www.physicsoftheunivers...

If there was a GoFundMe page...

[burhop]

... I'd so chip in a few $$ for this.

Worst case, Dr. Hawkings dies doing what he loves.

Best case, aliens pick him up, think humans are way smarter than we are, and appoint us leaders of the Galaxy.