Life in Small Bites

Peter H. Diamandis

Dec 7, 2012  –  Public

In this blog, I want to share with you how I overcame the risks involved in taking the world-famous wheelchair-bound physicist Stephen Hawking on a zero-gravity flight.

Doing anything bold and significant in life requires taking risks. And one of the biggest risks I took this past decade was flying the world-famous physicist into zero-gravity.

This blog is the first time I’m speaking about the behind-the-scenes story of those risks and the countermeasures we took. What might have seemed easy from the outside world, was not in any fashion in its execution.

Back in 2007, I had the opportunity to meet Professor Stephen Hawking through the +X PRIZE Foundation. In my first conversation with him I learned that he was passionate about flying into space someday. I told him that while I couldn’t get him into orbit, I could offer him the chance to fly aboard our specially modified Boeing 727 and experience weightlessness. After all, the idea of flying the world’s “greatest expert in gravity” into zero-gravity was too good to be true. He said yes immediately — or for as long as it took him to type out the letters on his machine.

In 2007, I had been running Zero-G for almost 14 years. Co-founded in 1993 with astronaut Byron Lichtenberg and NASA scientist +Ray Cronise, it had been a very, very long startup. It had taken us nearly 11 years to get permission from the FAA to offer the general public the experience of weightlessness (our first flight was in September 2004).

Meeting with my team, we brainstormed making the flight into a fundraiser for ALS (Hawking’s motor neuron disease is related to ALS, or Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis). Hawking quickly agreed and we sent out a press release the very next day saying, “Zero G to fly Stephen Hawking into weightlessness to raise funds for ALS.” I had expected nothing but positive reaction. But what happened next shocked me. I received two phone calls. One came from our airline partner saying, “You’re crazy. You’re going to be flying this guy who has been in a wheelchair for 40 years and there’s a good chance he might get injured.” The other came from a friend at the FAA who said, “You know the rules under which you are operating require that anyone flying must be certified ‘able-bodied’ and I can’t imagine anyone here would view Prof Hawking as able-bodied.” On top of that, I had a number of people in the commercial space world approach me saying that this was a bad idea, that a major accident could set back everything we had been working toward for decades.

I was in a quandary. I had started Zero-G specifically to broaden the public for access to weightlessness. Commercializing space was all about giving the experience to a much broader audience, especially amazing people like Prof. Hawking. To be told “no” was all the more reason to figure out how to make it happen. The challenge was getting there without aggravating the FAA lawyers and also making sure the flight was indeed safe for the world’s most famous physicist.

It took me six months, many phone calls with lawyers, my friends at the FAA, our aircraft partner and a number of physicians… but we finally got there.

The first thing we did was ask the question, “Who determines if someone is able-bodied?” The second question we asked is how we could maximize Hawking’s chances of safety.

The answer to the first question, in our opinion, was that the only folks qualified to judge Hawking’s physical health status were his own personal physicians, and perhaps experts from the space-medicine world. So after purchasing liability and malpractice insurance policies for a few (not disclosed here) physicians, we were able to submit three letters to the FAA stating without question, that Hawking was “able-bodied” for the Zero-G flight.

Regarding the second question about safety, we decided to turn the forward half of the G-ForceOne (our special weightless 727 aircraft) into a mobile emergency room able to deal with any slew of medical conditions that might arise. We also decided to conduct a practice flight with a stand-in for Dr. Hawking on whom we would practice a series of zero-g healthcare maneuvers… everything from CPR to electroshock conversion.

With this plan in place and a final blessing from all concerned parties I set out to make this happen. Here’s what happened next:

– We sold about 20 tickets at $15,000 each from donors and raised about $150,000 for ALS. At the same time, we covered our costs for the flight and press conference. (The flight was also sponsored by Spaceport Florida and by Sharper Image.)

– We flew a practice run the day before the actual flight. All of the paying donors got to fly on this flight as well, and float around and enjoy the experience (the next day, they’d be concentrating on observing Hawking during the flight).

– As a stand-in for Hawking during these “medical test runs,” we found a 15-year old high-school boy who had a passion for physics and who was roughly the same height and weight as Hawking. He was put in a wheelchair, told not not to move a muscle, and we practiced what to do if Hawking had a heart attack and tachycardia or suffered a broken bone. These were things at risk: Hawking is very frail.

– Onboard we had four physicians and two nurses monitoring the 15-year-old’s heart rate, blood pressure, Po2 and breathing at the same time that they ran through all of their emergency medical procedures in zero g.

But the day of the flight was extraordinary.

The entire event took place at the +NASA’s Kennedy Space Center on the 15,000-foot-long Shuttle Landing Facility (SLF) — one of the longest runways in the world. That morning in front of hundreds of reporters, we held a press conference announcing our intention to conduct “a least a single 30-second parabola” (normally on a consumer zero-g flight, we do about 15 in total). We chose to do a pre-flight press conference because, frankly, we had no idea what shape Hawking would be in at the end of the day.

What stood out most in my mind that morning, was his answer to the press conference question: “Professor Hawking, why are you doing this flight?”

This was Hawking’s answer: “Life on Earth is at the ever-increasing risk of being wiped out by a disaster…  I think the human race doesn’t have a future if it doesn’t go into space. I therefore want to encourage public interest in space.”

We boarded Hawking on his wheelchair using a scissor lift, then carried him off his wheelchair into one of the seats for takeoff. Once we reached cruising altitude of 24,000 feet, we carried him to the front of the airplane and lay him on top of pre-positioned padding and pillows. At Hawking’s feet was my partner and two-time astronaut Byron Lichtenberg. I was at Hawking’s head. As we entered the first parabolic arc and Hawking floated into the air, the entire airplane erupted into cheers. Thirty people in the back of the plane were hooping and hollering. Hawking was free of his wheelchair and the bounds of gravity for the first time in over 40 years. While his entire body is paralyzed, he does have use of a few facial muscles, and the smile that expressed his emotion was extraordinary. He looked like a kid floating in zero-g. After the first parabola, when we returned to normal gravity, I looked over to the lead physicians monitoring his vitals. Apparently everything was rock solid and I was given the thumbs-up to proceed.  While my original intention was to do at least one parabola, at most, perhaps three, Hawking wanted to keep going. At the end we finished up doing eight parabolas, with Hawking still raring to go.

Hawking was so filled with energy that after we landed he even did a post-flight press conference. The result was front-page press worldwide.

Again, doing anything significantly big and bold in life requires taking risks. This was a big one for me personally and for the company. One question people ask me is how do you know when to take a big risk? My answer is twofold:

1. If the risk is fully aligned with your purpose and mission, then it’s worth considering. In this case, flying people like Hawking is exactly why we had created Zero G.

2. Second, you need to do everything you can to retire as much of the risk as reasonable, such that you can honestly say that you covered all of the situations you were most concerned about.

I get demoralized by organizations that start off with a mission and pull back when they find it’s risky. I view risk-aversion as crippling America in many ways. Most people (and politicians) forget that 500 years ago, thousands of people risked (and gave) their lives to cross the Atlantic and settle America. And then, again, 200 years ago they did the same to settle the West.

For me, Stephen Hawking’s flight also allowed us to pioneer the ability to take handicapped people into weightlessness and a year later we had the opportunity to take a group of six wheelchair-bound teenagers into zero gravity. These were kids who had never walked a day in their lives. Their experiencing the ability to fly like Superman around the airplane without their wheelchairs was remarkable.

Ultimately when you are doing something new, you have to ask yourself is it worth the risk to you? Is it something that you’re willing to bet everything on? If you’re doing something big and bold that’s sometimes what it takes.

Zero-G today has flown over 12,000 people into zero gravity. The company operates flights in cities across the U.S. The ticket price is $5,000 — reasonable when you think of the 11 years of start-up time! If you’re interested in flying, you can find more on the company’s website: www.GoZeroG.com. It is a truly remarkable experience and worth every penny!

1. Life isn’t fair, but it’s still good.

2. When in doubt, just take the next small step.

3. Life is too short not to enjoy it.

4. Your job won’t take care of you when you are sick. Your friends and family will.

5. Don’t buy stuff you don’t need.

6. You don’t have to win every argument. Stay true to yourself.

7. Cry with someone. It’s more healing than crying alone.

8. It’s OK to get angry with God. He can take it.

9. Save for things that matter.

10. When it comes to chocolate, resistance is futile.

11. Make peace with your past so it won’t screw up the present.

12. It’s OK to let your children see you cry.

13. Don’t compare your life to others. You have no idea what their journey is all about.

14. If a relationship has to be a secret, you shouldn’t be in it.

15. Everything can change in the blink of an eye… But don’t worry; God never blinks.

16. Take a deep breath. It calms the mind.

17. Get rid of anything that isn’t useful.  Clutter weighs you down in many ways.

18. Whatever doesn’t kill you really does make you stronger.

19. It’s never too late to be happy.  But it’s all up to you and no one else.

20. When it comes to going after what you love in life, don’t take no for an answer.

21. Burn the candles, use the nice sheets, wear the fancy lingerie. Don’t save it for a special occasion. Today is special.

22. Overprepare, then go with the flow.

23. Be eccentric now. Don’t wait for old age to wear purple.

24. The most important sex organ is the brain.

25. No one is in charge of your happiness but you.

26. Frame every so-called disaster with these words, ‘In five years, will this matter?’

27. Always choose Life.

28. Forgive but don’t forget.

29. What other people think of you is none of your business.

30. Time heals almost everything. Give Time time.

31. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.

32. Don’t take yourself so seriously. No one else does.

33. Believe in miracles.

34. God loves you because of who God is, not because of anything you did or didn’t do.

35. Don’t audit life. Show up and make the most of it now.

36. Growing old beats the alternative — dying young.

37. Your children get only one childhood.

38. All that truly matters in the end is that you loved.

39. Get outside every day. Miracles are waiting everywhere.

40. If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else’s, we’d
grab ours back.

41. Envy is a waste of time. Accept what you already have, not what you think you need.

42. The best is yet to come…

43. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.

44. Yield.

45. Life isn’t tied with a bow, but it’s still a gift.

#personal  #life  #life lessons

∞  SEPTEMBER 17, 2012

9,191 NOTES

VIA REGINABRETT.COM

By Dr. Jeff Alexander

Consider the possibility that everything you ever thought was wrong with you was really right with you. Consider that every painful experience in your life has been an important ingredient to your development and evolution. As the extreme tons of pressure needed to launch a rocket into space, you have accumulated experiences until you can launch yourself into freedom. Of course the ego interpreted this as suffering.

Humanity has created the most violent forms of suffering and now risks extinction of it’s own species. We are the most powerful and dangerous species in the history of the world. There seems to be a lot of fear of the consequences if we do not change our behavior.

Yet we have used our genius to engineer the healing of disease, feed the hungry and save millions of lives through technology. This compassion has kept us alive in spite of our desire to dominate each other.

I have often talked about this as the “normal vs. natural” condition of humanity. We are natural at birth: loving, curious about our physical environment, ready to take risks to discover and explore. We soon learn to become normal and the shadow of fear takes over. It has been this way since the beginning of humanity.

Consider that even suffering is part of the divine plan.  Yes, even the role of our dear friend the ego. Without the interpretation of the ego, we could possibly have never experienced the motivating force of suffering to convince us to change. It has been said “You can get it with a feather or you can get it with a hammer.”  One only has to pick up a history book to discover which path we have taken. And because hammers hurt, pain has become our companion throughout this path.

When you can see the beauty in the entire process as an individual, then we will see it as a collective. You will understand with new insights that it has all been appropriate and part of a great plan. I am certain that we could have danced through the ages with lessons more in tune with the feather analogy. But that is definitely not the way it went down. We have taken the hammer, to each other and to ourselves.

Most of you know by now that I love metaphors. So here is another one for you that will help you learn to bless this whole process.

We know that the butterfly, which takes a completely different form from the one part of its life to the next, most often symbolizes transformation.  The final days of the caterpillar cause it to eat hundreds of times its own body weight. It violently consumes its environment. One caterpillar can devour a whole tree as it approaches the end of its existence. Its voracious appetite drives it to the point where its skin is stretched. It becomes very heavy outgrowing its own skin many times, until it is too bloated to move another inch.  The discomfort stimulates it to find a final resting place where it can hang upside down attaching to a branch forming a chrysalis. This dark place encloses the caterpillar and limits its freedom as it views the upside down world for the last time.

After the caterpillar entombs itself in its cocoon, it does not simply begin to transform into a butterfly. It literally disintegrates into liquid ooze.  If you were to crack open the chrysalis half way through the process, you would not find a creature that is half caterpillar and half butterfly. You would discover a bunch of ooze.  This goop is now what is left of the body of the caterpillar.

Then something very interesting begins to happen. The emergence of a new cell appears. These cells do not come from the previous goop. They seem to come out of nowhere. Scientists do not know how they appear and they are completely different from the original ooze of the caterpillar. These new cells are called “imaginal cells” from the word, imagine.

At first they appear individually and are perceived as foreign to the original ooze cells. These cells resonate at a different frequency.  They are so different from the caterpillar cells that the immune system thinks they are enemies and begins to attack and destroy them.  But these new imaginal cells continue to appear. After a period of time, the immune system cannot destroy them because they are coming too fast.  More and more cells arrive and then a turning point in the process occurs.

The imaginal cells begin to find each other. At first they cling to each other. The law of attraction is in effect as like cells cling to like cells. The next process is equally miraculous. The small groups of clinging cells find other groups of cells and form clusters. This new community of clusters now feeds from the nutritive soup that was the liquid caterpillar and the ooze supplies an important step in the maintenance of the clusters.

As the clusters bond with each other, they interact and exchange information from one to another inside the chrysalis. The imaginal cells become directors of the process. The DNA intelligence orchestrates which is to become antenna cells, what cells will be digestive tracts while others begin to change into wing cells. The violent attempt of the host immune system to annihilate the imaginal cells literally activates the sleeping DNA of this new cell to grow, cluster and create a new creature.  When the nutritive soup has been absorbed and the final imaginal cell completes its process, we have the emergence of one of nature’s most beautiful miracles – the butterfly.

If you are in the middle of your “nutritive soup” and feel the attacking of your own ego as the upside down world appears to close in around you, then you just might be right on schedule.

Like the caterpillar, humanity is now called “consumers” in the market place. Not a very flattering label. We have taken a toll on the environment and each other. Throughout our history, imaginal prophets and leaders have been attacked and eliminated by violent means. The ego of humanity, which consumed many beautiful souls, has been an integral part of our spiritual evolution. The hammer has cracked open the imaginal cell to begin the final chapter of transformation. This is normal consciousness.

We are the imaginal cells. We are clustering and understand our own limitations and potentials. We have been taught to love our enemies and understand that they are so consumed by fear and ignorance that they do not know what they are doing. The natural imaginal cell that has emerged from the nutritive soup of our ancestors has found each other.  We are clustering. If these words resonate with you, then something deep within you is being released. There could be thousands or millions reading these words because our chrysalis has become transparent by the Internet.

Any discomfort of your past activated the ego to experience suffering. Without the pain, the global immune system is not activated. We have done this individually and collectively. We are the immune system kicking in. We are also the imaginal cells that are the intelligence lying dormant in our own DNA. It is our job to find each other. We are part of the largest movement in the history of the world. There is no center to this movement. There is no spokesman and humans from all walks of life and corners of our world are turning their complaints into a commitment larger than themselves.

We are on the threshold of a new reality. We are resurrecting ourselves from the normal reality back to the natural existence that is our divine birthright. We are moving away from fear and toward love.  We must allow and surrender to our true nature as loving beings. We must learn to bless that which we once cursed, to embrace those whom we have rejected and to express gratitude for all we have experienced. And where do we start? We can look within and find that which we have not forgiven.

As we continue to cluster and awaken our global heart, we will overcome political corruption; heal economic degeneration, environmental disasters and the bloated accumulation of over-consumption. All personal and collective chaos is happening for a reason beyond our normal thinking mind. Our Warrior Spirit will see us through to the light of the natural mind of Spirit where freedom awaits. And we will create that butterfly.

An additional note:  It has just been discovered by biologists that the genetic code that is responsible for the wings of a butterfly is also the exact same gene code responsible for the beating of the human heart.

In his 1989 book On Becoming a Leader, Warren Bennis composed a concise list of the differences:

1. The manager administers; the leader innovates.
2. The manager is a copy; the leader is an original.
3. The manager maintains; the leader develops.
4. The manager focuses on systems and structure; the leader focuses on people.
5. The manager relies on control; the leader inspires trust.
6. The manager has a short-range view; the leader has a long-range perspective.
7. The manager asks how and when; the leader asks what and why.
8. The manager has his or her eye always on the bottom line; the leader’s eye is on the horizon.
9. The manager imitates; the leader originates.
10. The manager accepts the status quo; the leader challenges it.
11. The manager is the classic good soldier; the leader is his or her own person.
12. The manager does things right; the leader does the right thing.

Floating lazily on my back in the Andaman Sea, I was drifting in and out of a pre-planned reverie.  Three weeks earlier my son, Gary, had been born.  He was healthy and beautiful.

The many weeks before had been less so.  The doctors had advised that the baby was in a breech position and a cesarean delivery was recommended and scheduled.

On week before the scheduled surgery, Gary had flipped inside and a normal birth was now possible. With labor pains commencing, my wife, Marlena, was taken to the hospital.  While monitoring Marlena’s labor, it became evident that the baby was under stress as his heart rate had become irregular.  The doctor, fearing that the umbilical cord had become wrapped around Gary’s neck, decided to perform an immediate cesarean.  The doctor’s assessment and decision were correct – indeed the cord had wrapped dangerously around Gary’s neck.

In addition to the normal stresses preceding the birth of a child, my work and travel schedule had also sponsored mounting stresses.  With Gary and Marlena healthy and safe, three weeks later I headed to the island of Phuket for a three-day respite.

Back to the Andaman:  My floating reverie collapsed quickly when I opened my eyes to discover that a rip-tide had swept me hundreds of yard from shore.  Never a strong swimmer, I attempted to swallow my panic and swim toward land.  Not to be!

The more I thrashed the farther I was carried out to sea.  I could barely spot a few people on the beach.  My yells for help were unnoticed and unattended.  Panic began to take control.

My total thoughts were about my new son and how thoughtless and careless I had been to deprive him of my fathering  – and me of his loving companionship.  From a deep recess a memory emerged.

I recalled reading that you cannot ‘swim against the tide’.  To overcome the pull of the tide required swimming at an angle with it, hoping to swim out of its grip.

My thoughts exploded in expletives, “Damn!  If this life experience is going to end here it is going to watch me swimming – and swimming!”  Silently, but vehemently, I shouted down my panic and replaced it with the resolve that my life and Gary’s, and all my ‘loved ones’, were worth ‘one more stroke’!  My physical and mental strength became irrelevant – as did Time.  My total focus was ‘one more stroke’!  No enlightenment or ‘open heavens’ embraced me.  I swam and I swam, and I swam – ‘one stroke at a time’.

A million years later I sensed that the current no longer commanded me.  I turned toward shore, now a couple of miles distant, and continued one stroke at a time.

Stroke by stroke I inched closer to shore. I swam promising to re-unite with my ‘loved ones’.  The water warmed as it shallowed.  When I finally stood trembling, staggering to the beach I saw children and parents frolicking – all having no awareness of my travail.

As I collapsed on the bed of the rented island cottage several thoughts flooded my mind:

1. Sometimes we seem to be truly alone.
2. Yet, we have inner strengths – unknown to us.
3. The power of Love is a doorway.
4. As I create my life great opportunities and contributions are possible when I willfully demand access to these strengths.
5. Requested strength may not rush forward.  It may only appear when decisively acting ‘one stroke at a time’.
6. My life experience is blessed – it is my challenge to share my strengths for the benefit of others.

This story could have been positioned in my book chapters on Adversity, Courage, Success, or even Responsibility.  I chose Service because the lesson for me is, “I am strengthened when working for the benefit of my ‘loved-ones’ and others.

Although not always living-up to my own expectations, my life mantra continues to be, “Serving self is in serving others – one stroke at a time.”

*****

“The service we render to others is really the rent we pay for our room on this earth. It is obvious that man is himself a traveler; that the purpose of this world is not ‘to have and to hold’ but ‘to give and serve.’ There can be no other meaning.”  –  Sir Wilfred Grenfell