History
Founded by entrepreneur Peter Diamandis, astronaut Byron K. Lichtenberg, and NASA engineer Ray Cronise, the company has been operating weightless flights since 2004. A number of notable passengers have been on weightless flights run by the company, including Penn Jillette and Teller, Martha Stewart, Burt Rutan, Buzz Aldrin, and John Carmack. Theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking also completed a shortened flight on April 26, 2007.
In April 2006, ZERO-G became the first commercial company to gain permission from the Kennedy Space Center to use its space shuttle runway and landing facilities. On April 21, 2007, it began regular flights from Las Vegas for the general public at ticket prices of USD $3,675. Good Morning America aired promotional footage featuring the show's weatherman Sam Champion during a preview flight in Ohio. On December 9, 2007, Zero G hosted Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman of MythBusters to disprove the conspiracy that the Apollo Moon landing was a hoax.
In March 2008, the company was acquired by Space Adventures.
On April 20, 2011, a Safety Approval was granted to ZERO-G by the FAA which allows the company to "...offer reduced gravity parabolic flights to prospective suborbital launch operators to meet the applicable components of the crew qualification and training requirements outlined in the Code of Federal Regulations (14 C.F.R., Section 460.5)."
Read more about this topic: Zero Gravity Corporation
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“It would be naive to think that peace and justice can be achieved easily. No set of rules or study of history will automatically resolve the problems.... However, with faith and perseverance,... complex problems in the past have been resolved in our search for justice and peace. They can be resolved in the future, provided, of course, that we can think of five new ways to measure the height of a tall building by using a barometer.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)
“The history of our era is the nauseating and repulsive history of the crucifixion of the procreative body for the glorification of the spirit.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)
“What would we not give for some great poem to read now, which would be in harmony with the scenery,—for if men read aright, methinks they would never read anything but poems. No history nor philosophy can supply their place.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)