Now that the commercialization of space is imminent, all kinds of companies are looking to fill various market niches. And believe me, there's a huge niche of people who want to get a taste of space travel for something less than the $20-25 million it costs to fly on the International Space Station courtesy of Space Adventures, or the $200K it will cost to fly on Virgin Galactic two years from now.
Into the gap is X-Prize founder Peter Diamandis' Zero Gravity Corporation, which started offering parabolic flights in 2004. These steeply arcing flights give passengers 30 or 40 seconds of weightlessness at a time, for a ticket price of just $3,500.
In what might be one of the great generous gestures / brilliant publicity opps (PDF press release) of the dawning commercial space age, Zero Gravity gave physicist Stephen Hawking a ride this week. The Planetary Society has a story about Hawking's flight that includes a detailed description of what it feels like to ride on the "vomit comet." Hawking, who has been confined to a wheelchair for decades, loved it.
And that's not all: In two years, Hawking will get a ride on Virgin Galactic, courtesy of Richard Branson.
See also: Wired Science: Stephen Hawking Flies at Zero Gravity
