It is true, he is famous for being a disabled scientist.
But why shouldn't a disabled scientist get the opportunity?
Perhaps him having the experience will open the door for others?
And Kralk, just because we have a swearing filter in place, doesn't mean you need to keep testing that it works, so if you could chill out in that regard please.
oh, yeah, and if a significant number of people are reacting negatively to your opinion, there's a message hidden there somewhere...
Him being in a wheelchair may have contributed to his public image. That does not mean he has been given the free flight based solely on the fact that he is in a wheelchair. I'm sure there are many other physicists in wheelchairs that no one has heard of. He wrote an enormously successful popular science book on cosmology. He has also made important academic contributions to theoretical physics. You don't get to become Lucasian Professor of Mathematics (a position held by Newton and Dirac) at Cambridge by being an idiot. The fact that he has a big public profile may have been decisive in him being given the free tickets, but who cares? In case you haven't noticed, what you get out of life is not only based on your scientific aptitude and intellectual contribution. People do things for other reasons.
Would you object if Nelson Mandela was given a free flight? He would not be as well known if he didn't spend so much time in prison, so of course it would be an outrage.
Who cares what YOU think? You're clearly quite daft.
Hawking advocates space exploration since he thinks the earth may be in danger of desctruction or will at some point be no longer able to maintain human life. His concerns are quite justified. If people are going into space, which is probably filled with black holes, they better be damn sure they know what's going on before they get compressed to a quantum singularity.
Also, who cares if a guy in a wheelchair gets to ride in zero g? If it were some random guy in a wheelchair who hadn't dedicated his life to understanding space, why would there be a problem?
Good lord, man, shut the hell up about this and go do something useful.
I just made one point and somone (probally slip) decided to pick up on it and turn it into some massive argument. Hes also taken what I said out of proportion. now if you just started reading now read this bit carefully before you reply. All I said is that if he wasn't in a wheel cahir I doubt he would be getting free zero g flights, PLEASE NOTE THAT I HAVE NOT SAID THIS IS A GOOD OR BAD THING.
The only way to be sure about what happens in a black hole is to be in one would you like to volenteer? And does it matter if the entire human race dies out, to behonest i'd say good were vile destrcutive things. lol
I thought it was so cool that Mr Hawkins could be free of his wheelchair for that short time. I bet he'll always cherish those moments
Extrapolating from Kralk's argument, I'm going to lie down on the railroad track and get my legs irreversibly smashed so I'll hopefully be in a wheelchair and thus get a zero gravity fun ride.