- The revered physicist Stephen Hawking died Wednesday. Eleven years before his death, he fulfilled a lifelong dream of experiencing zero gravity.
- A serial entrepreneur named Peter Diamandis brought Hawking aboard one of his company's Zero G planes in 2007.
- Diamandis pushed back against the Federal Aviation Administration, which didn't want Hawking to fly because of his Lou Gehrig's disease.
Stephen Hawking, the highly influential theoretical physicist, died Wednesday at 76.
Eleven years ago, despite the Federal Aviation Administration's disapproval, he was able to fulfill a lifelong dream of experiencing weightlessness in zero gravity with the help of a serial entrepreneur named Peter Diamandis.
In an interview for a recent episode of Business Insider's podcast "Success! How I Did It," Diamandis said watching Hawking smile as he floated in zero gravity was one of the best moments in his life.
"And it was just a momentous event for me to give this man, who so desired this ... such an amazing experience," Diamandis said. "And I'm so happy to have had a chance to deliver that to him."
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Diamandis met Hawking, a personal hero of his, through his company the XPrize, which offers investment incentives to entrepreneurs and engineers who find solutions to challenges like commercializing space flight.
"And he said, 'Can you get me into space?'" Diamandis told Business Insider.
"And I said, 'I can't do that right now, but I can give you a chance to fly on zero G,'" he said.
One of Diamandis' companies was Zero G, which provided consumers with a chance to take a flight within Earth's atmosphere that allowed them to experience several minutes of simulated weightlessness.
"I thought the idea of the world's expert in gravity getting a chance to experience zero gravity would be amazing," Diamandis said. For Hawking, this was a fair compromise.
"I have been wheelchair-bound for almost four decades and the chance to float free in zero G will be wonderful," Hawking told the press ahead of his flight. Hawking also wanted to have his experience serve as inspiration for other people with Lou Gehrig's disease, the neural disease also known as ALS that results in severe muscle degeneration.
Both Diamandis and Hawking were excited and announced their plan to the press.
"And I got two calls," Diamandis said. "One from our aircraft partner at the time, saying: 'You're crazy! You're going to put the world's [most] famous physicist into zero G? You're going to kill the guy!' And then I got a call from another organization — I won't mention who they are, but their initials are FAA — and they said, 'You can't.'"
Diamandis told Business Insider he was flustered but maintained enough control to not back down. He got the FAA to agree that if a series of doctors could assess Hawking — then a 65-year-old man who had ALS and used a wheelchair — as fit for the zero-G flight, the agency would allow it to move forward.
After a couple of months spent meeting with various doctors, the consensus was that there was an acceptable chance that Hawking would be fine. Hawking wanted to proceed, and so Diamandis was willing to take the risk.
On April 26, 2007, Diamandis' Zero G team successfully took Hawking on a zero-gravity flight without any negative incident. Its success also led to Zero G taking a group of children who used wheelchairs on a flight to experience the same freeing sense of weightlessness.
During Hawking's trip, Diamandis said: "I was just a kid in a candy store. Here is one of my heroes. And this was a dream come true. Not only flying zero G, but my having a chance to give him this experience. And also, in the background, is, 'I hope I don't screw up.'"
The trip lasted about two hours for a total of four minutes of weightlessness.
Hawking had limited ability for facial movement, but he smiled as wide as possible throughout those four minutes.
"It was amazing," Hawking told the press afterward, adding that he considered it a first step. "Space, here I come."
Remembering Stephen Hawking:
- Stephen Hawking was rumored to run over the toes of people he didn't like with his wheelchair
- Here's what Eddie Redmayne, who played Stephen Hawking in 'The Theory of Everything,' said about his death
- 15 Stephen Hawking quotes that reveal how a genius thinks
- Must-read list: The best stories on Stephen Hawking
- Scientists recall stories of how they crashed into Stephen Hawking's wheelchair
- Stephen Hawking had a 'sense of humor as vast as the universe': unique tributes flood in for esteemed scientist
