A smart man once said: “Look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see, and wonder about what makes the universe exist.”
And now he’s finally going to space.
Professor Stephen Hawking — CH, CBE, FRS, FRSA, Director of Research at the Centre for Theoretical Cosmology at the University of Cambridge and official historian of time — is going to take flight aboard Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic spaceship. Space travel has been a long-standing dream of the cosmologist and physicist, and one he thought he would never realize. But “Richard Branson has offered me a seat on Virgin Galactic, and I said yes immediately,” he told Good Morning Britain.
“Professor Stephen Hawking is one of the people I admire most in the world, an undisputed genius who has opened our eyes to the wonders of the universe, while also happening to be a kind and delightful man,” said Branson. “He is the only person I have given a free ticket with Virgin Galactic, and he is signed up to fly as a Future Astronaut with us if his health permits it.”
At 75, Hawking would still not be the eldest person to head into space. That title belongs to a 77-year-old John Glenn. But he’s likely to hold the title for most deserved and certainly most awesome.
Once, when asked which superhero he would choose to be, Hawking picked Superman, because the Man of Steel is everything he’s not.
Well get ready, chap. Because that’s about to change.
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