Free Republic

British physicist Stephen Hawking, who is world-famous for his intellectual prowess as well as his physical frailty, has made a firm date with weightlessness on April 26, aboard a jet flying out of NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Hawking's excellent adventure, provided by California-based Zero Gravity Corp., would represent one small step toward the 65-year-old scientist's goal of flying in space as early as 2009 — as well as one giant leap for people with disabilities. "As someone who has studied gravity and black holes all of my life, I am excited to experience, firsthand, weightlessness and a zero-gravity...

PROJECT OVERVIEW ABSTRACT Electrical activity emanating from the brain is displayed in the form of four types of brainwaves that are associated with specific cognitive functions and that vary in level of activity. The team’s experiment will measure a test subject’s level of brainwave activity while performing a variety of tasks in a virtual reality environment in zero-gravity. By immersing the test subject in a virtual reality simulation, the team will be able to duplicate many of the cognitive and motor functions required of astronauts working in space. Effects of a short-term microgravity environment, such as vertigo and spatial disorientation,...