Context:
Disability outreach
Hawking, without his wheelchair, floating weightless in the air inside a plane
Hawking taking a zero-gravity flight in a "Vomit Comet"
Since the 1990s, Hawking has accepted the mantle of role model for disabled people, lecturing and participating in fundraising activities.[295] At the turn of the century, he and eleven other luminaries signed the Charter for the Third Millennium on Disability which called on governments to prevent disability and protect disability rights.[296][297] In 1999 Hawking was awarded the Julius Edgar Lilienfeld Prize of the American Physical Society.[298] Motivated by the desire to increase public interest in spaceflight and to show the potential of people with disabilities, in 2007 he participated in zero-gravity flight in a "Vomit Comet", courtesy of Zero Gravity Corporation, during which he experienced weightlessness eight times.[271][299][300][301]
More:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Hawking#Religion