{"id":199,"date":"2007-04-27T07:02:15","date_gmt":"2007-04-27T11:02:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.flascience.org\/wp\/?p=199"},"modified":"2008-08-05T12:43:56","modified_gmt":"2008-08-05T16:43:56","slug":"feelin-free","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=199","title":{"rendered":"Feelin’ free"},"content":{"rendered":"

Congratulations to Professor Hawking for riding the “vomit comet” and living to tell the tale<\/a>. I know it had to be exciting for him, but I have no doubt there was some fear laced in there as well. However, some news reports noted he didn’t need an air sick bag.\u00c2\u00a0We salute you, sir!<\/p>\n

One of the world’s foremost scientists slipped free from his wheelchair Thursday to float in zero gravity in the skies above the Atlantic Ocean.<\/p>\n

Stephen Hawking, a renowned British astrophysicist who is stricken with Lou Gehrig’s disease, experienced about four minutes of simulated weightlessness aboard a modified Boeing 727 jet operated by the Zero Gravity Corp.<\/p>\n

…<\/p>\n

Hawking was laid on his back on the floor of the aircraft’s forward section. Then, when the dives began, two people — Zero Gravity Corp. co-founders Peter Diamandis and Byron Lichtenberg — helped lift Hawking and hold him in position. During a couple of dives, Hawking asked the two men to flip him around.<\/p>\n

“He was doing gold-medalist gymnastics in zero G[ravity],” Diamandis said.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This flight is apparently meant as a step toward actual space flight in a couple of years about Virgin Galactic. It looks like he’s ready for launch now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Congratulations to Professor Hawking for riding the “vomit comet” and living to tell the tale. I know it had to be exciting for him, but I have no doubt there was some fear laced in there as well. However, some … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[3,5],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pcZNLl-3d","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":812,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=812","url_meta":{"origin":199,"position":0},"title":"Bats, gravity and plants","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"December 3, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Seven Springs Elementary School students have been going batty lately. Did you know that there are more than 1,000 species of bats and that they live on every continent except for Antarctica? Or that bats are mammals that groom themselves like a cat, and they actually fly with their webbed\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "In the News"","block_context":{"text":"In the News","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":126,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=126","url_meta":{"origin":199,"position":1},"title":"Hanging out in space just isn’t good enough","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"January 2, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"We can take a handful of people, shoot them into space, have them do some handyman work in zero gravity and get them back to Earth. There is very real danger involved. Yeah? So? That's what the younger generation thinks, according to NASA. Earth orbit just isn't exciting anymore, I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "In the News"","block_context":{"text":"In the News","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=3"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":903,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=903","url_meta":{"origin":199,"position":2},"title":"It’s the little things that matter","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"February 13, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"-- Steve Robinson, an Ormond Beach environmental chemist, couldn't find a Darwin Day event near him, so he came up with his own. 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It's about\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Alert"","block_context":{"text":"Alert","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?cat=6"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":708,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=708","url_meta":{"origin":199,"position":4},"title":"“Don’t Panic”The World Will Not End Tomorrow","author":"Jonathan Smith","date":"September 9, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"You'd better read this today, because it's possible the world will end tomorrow.Ok I'm just kidding,but a few people will be holding their breath when the \"The Large Hadron Collider, man's biggest machine fires up tomorrow. At about 9.30 am local time, scientists will introduce a beam of protons into\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 7 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 7 comments","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=708#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":582,"url":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=582","url_meta":{"origin":199,"position":5},"title":"One of the best in the nation","author":"Brandon Haught","date":"May 12, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"I feel like I've been writing about science standards battles and legislative battles for far too long. So, it feels good to finally get back to saying good things about Florida science education. Congratulations to chemistry teacher Lisa Peake: Wesley Chapel chemistry teacher wins Presidential Award of Excellence WESLEY CHAPEL\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 5 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 5 comments","link":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/?p=582#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=199"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.flascience.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}