Submission + - Stephen Hawking Planning Space Flight
MidVicious writes: "Astrophysicist Stephen Hawking says he wants to undertake a zero-gravity flight aboard an airplane this year as a precursor to a journey into space, a newspaper reported Monday. Hawking, 65, has said he hopes to travel on British businessman Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic service, which is scheduled to launch in 2009. The service will charge space tourists about $200,000 (about £100,000) for a two-hour suborbital trip some 87 miles (140 kilometers) above the Earth. "Richard is very determined that if we can possibly make this happen, then it should," Virgin Galactic spokesman Stephen Attenborough said."