This just makes me cry and laugh with happiness. What a tremendous thrill! What a huge smile! Reportedly, he communicates the word "Yes" by raising an eyebrow, so I wonder if he's saying "Yes! YES! Yesyesyes!"?

Also, how many people can say "we took Stephen Hawking out for a spin"?  

Zero gravity a blast for Hawking – Travel – theage.com.au

Cosmologist Stephen Hawking soared into weightlessness on Thursday on a zero gravity flight that allowed the leading expert on gravity to briefly escape from his wheelchair.

"It was amazing … I could have gone on and on,'' Hawking, 65, said after riding for two hours on a modified jet that flew a rollercoaster trajectory to create the impression of microgravity. "Space, here I come,'' he said at NASA's Kennedy Space Centre in Florida.

The British professor, who has spent most of his career studying black holes and gravity, hopes the flight will be a prelude to a 2009 voyage into space. "I have long wanted to go into space,'' said Hawking, who is almost entirely paralysed.

"A zero gravity flight is the first step to space travel,'' he said at a news conference near the runway. "I hope many people will follow in my path.''

I'm in! David's in! Now we just have to save a boatload of money…

The NPR story is here, with lengthy quotes from Dr. Hawking in his computer-generated voice. 

[tags]Space, Stephen Hawking, Zero G[/tags]