Jolene Blalock will be the master of ceremonies at an event that no doubt her character "T'Pol" would find quite stimulating. She will present awards at the Space Technology Hall of Fame induction dinner, April 12 in Colorado Springs, Colo., in which the inductees are the actual technologies themselves. This year, those inductees are the Microbial Check Valve and Emulsified Zero-Valent Iron (ask any Vulcan, surely they'll know what those are). Blalock will recognize the organizations and individuals who developed and adapted these innovative technologies.

The dinner is the culminating event of the 23rd National Space Symposium, taking place April 9-12. The Space Technology Hall of Fame was established by The Space Foundation in cooperation with NASA to increase public awareness of the benefits that result from space exploration programs and to encourage further innovation.

The featured speaker at the dinner is astrophysicist Dr. Neil DeGrasse Tyson, director of the Hayden Planetarium in New York, whom you may recognize from his frequent appearances on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and other shows. For full information visit www.NationalSpaceSymposium.org.

Hawking to Make Zero-Gravity Flight

Dr. Stephen Hawking, who appeared as himself in "Descent, Part I," is scheduled to take a flight where the key word is "descent." On April 26 the world's most famous scientist will embark on a journey that would be extraordinary for an able-bodied man let alone a quadriplegic, when he boards a jet that will create an experience of weightlessness by means of parabolic maneuvers. The trip is compliments of Zero Gravity Corporation, run by space entrepreneur and Star Trek fan Peter Diamandis.

"As someone who has studied gravity and black holes all of my life, I am excited to experience, first hand, weightlessness and a zero-gravity environment," Hawking said in a press release from Zero Gravity.

Last fall Hawking — who recently turned 65 — made it known that he wishes to go into space before he dies, and has been talking to Virgin Galactic, founded by Sir Richard Branson, about that prospect. But any such literal space tour would not happen before 2009, so Zero Gravity stepped up to take him halfway there this year.

The zero-gravity flight takes place in a modified Boeing 727 dubbed "G-Force One," which soars to 32,000 feet at a sharp angle and then plunges 8,000 feet. During the descent, passengers in the padded cabin essentially go into free-fall, allowing them to float in the air as if they were in space. The weightless effect lasts about 25 seconds at a time. (This is how the zero-G scenes in "Apollo 13" were filmed.) Hawking, who will board the plane in his wheelchair but then be carried by his medical attendants to lie down in the "float zone," will experience three such descents, and possibly more if he's up to it.

Hawking's medical condition and safety are the prime concerns for this flight. The world-renowned physicist suffers from Lou Gehrig's disease, which has him almost completely paralyzed. While the weightlessness of the plane's descents would be a liberating experience, the ascents create almost double the force of gravity, stressing the body. Hawking's condition will be closely monitored, and the data could help determine how he might respond to a future suborbital flight on Virgin Galactic, as well as contribute to the field of space medicine in general.

"Our mission is to make the excitement and adventure of space and weightlessness accessible and enjoyable," said Diamandis. "Flying Prof. Hawking helps us demonstrate how this unique experience, once available only to astronauts, is now available to everyone."

Zero Gravity Corp. has conducted more than 100 weightless flights for more than 2,500 passengers since it began offering the service in September 2004. For the Hawking flight, the company is donating eight additional seats to charity for auction.

The flight will take off from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida, but the April 26 date could change to accommodate NASA's launch of Space Shuttle Atlantis.

Doohan Launch Announcement Expected Soon; Tributes Close March 15

Around the same time as Hawking's adventure, another flight of significance to the Star Trek community is likely to occur. Space Services Inc., aka Celestis, expects to make an announcement soon confirming a launch date for a "memorial spaceflight" that will carry the ashes of James Doohan into space. "The Legacy Flight" is the first of two planned launches involving Doohan, and it will take place at Spaceport America near Las Cruces, New Mexico, probably in late April. Once the launch date is finalized, a public memorial for Doohan will be scheduled for the day prior, at a location near the spaceport. Watch this site in the days ahead for that announcement.

Part of the Legacy Flight payload will be a disc containing thousands of digitized messages of tribute to Doohan (as well as astronaut Gordon Cooper). About 10,000 messages for Doohan alone have been collected since the forum opened in September 2005. If you have not yet submitted your tribute, click on this link to do so before Thursday, March 15. That's the date Celestis must close out the messages in order to integrate them into the payload.

The memorial spaceflight plans have been delayed several times over the last year-and-a-half (Doohan died in July 2005) due to technical issues with the rocket vehicles, which the launch providers partnered with Celestis have been working to address.

Gene Roddenberry was memorialized in such a fashion in 1997, six years after his death.

Army "Paralysis Beam" Likened to "Neural Neutralizer"

At first glance it seems analogous to the "stun" setting on a phaser, but a "paralysis beam" being developed by the U.S. Army is being likened by one science writer to the "neural neutralizer" which made people crazy in "Dagger of the Mind."

According to an article at LiveScience.com, the U.S. government has contracted Peak Beam Systems to "design and fabricate a light-based immobilization system/deterrent device and integrate it with an unmanned aerial system," using high-intensity light of sufficient frequency and modulation to "cause immobilization to all those within the beam." In other words, the goal is to develop a device that has an effect on the human nervous system, and that can be mounted on an aerial vehicle for the purposes of crowd control.

Despite the author's comparison to the thought-removing neural neutralizer, this description sounds much more similar to the "stun burst" setting of the Enterprise's phasers used to knock out the feuding gangsters in "A Piece of the Action." The full article is found at this LiveScience.com link.