April 24, 2007-- Stephen Hawking is considered to be the world’s greatest living theoretical physicist, and he even got a guest spot on "Star Trek: The Next Generation". Trekkies will tell you that the episode in question featured a computer simulated poker match between Hawking, Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, and Commander Data, the android crewmember on the Enterprise.

What do you for an encore? How about a microgravity flight high over the Kennedy Space Center? Professor Hawking, whose work has tried to create a theory to explain the birth, life, and death of the universe, will board a jet operated by Zero-Gravity Corporation for a flight over Brevard County that will simulate the weightlessness of space by flying in an arch shaped pattern. The Florida/Las Vegas based company is trying to popularize space tourism, and KSC appears to be trying to make its presence known in this future industry.

Last week, NASA invited the owner of a private F-104 Starfighter jet to make supersonic test flights from the same runway that the Space Shuttle uses. The point is to plot the path that future space tourists might take on short sub-orbital trips, like the ones taken by Mercury Pioneers Alan Shepard and Gus Grissom during the dawn of the U.S. Space Program.