Simulating Weightlessness
Since as early as I can remember, I have always wanted to go into space. Unfortunately, that's about as far as I thought at the time and the whole thing remained just a dream. It wasn't until I got older that I realized that I could have actually done something about it in my life. Of course, had I been smart, I would have joined the military with the goal of becoming an astronaut and had them pay for everything. But apparently I'm not smart. Instead, I'm going to rely on the burgeoning private space industry.
While I can't afford the ~22 million it would take to catch a lift with the Russians to the Space Station, there are other things I can do to prepare for my eventual trip. So this weekend I went to NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida and boarded a Boeing 727 with a largely empty interior. We took off of the runway the Space Shuttle lands on and flew out over the Atlantic Ocean into a Military Operating Area some 10 by 100 miles in size. Aside from the 50 or 60 feet of leg room I had, this would have been a normal flight up to this point. But this airplane is certified to do parabolas which mimic varying levels of gravity. Most interestingly, it can give you 30 seconds of weightlessness!
We started out lying on our backs on the floor while the jet pitched into a parabola. We waited through about 45 seconds of 1.8 Gs which felt to me as if I weighed about 320 pounds rather than my regular 180. As we started to crest the first parabola, the jet mimicked the gravitational force of the planet Mars, or 1/3 Earth's gravity. I was roughly 60 pounds at this point so I did a few push-ups - using one hand - and I was able to get well up into the air!
The call came to lie down on the floor again for the troth of the parabola. I was 320 pounds again and stuck to the floor. Once we pulled out, the jet simulated the gravitational force you would feel on the moon, or 1/6 Earth's gravity. I was 30 pounds and so tried my push ups again. This time all I needed was a fingertip or two of one hand and on the last one, I pushed all the way up to a standing position! I tried walking around a little and almost hit my head on the ceiling more than once. Remember those movies of the guys jumping around on the moon?
After another simulation of Moon gravity, we did our first zero gravity simulation. This, of course, was what I had come for. The jet started to crest the parabola and I could feel my weight against the floor slowly roll off to zero. Your tenancy is to push off of the floor as you get up so everyone pretty much inevitably ends up at the ceiling. I was no exception, but the experience was nothing short of spectacular! It was almost exactly as I had imagined it would be. That whole "equal and opposite reaction" stuff that I had thought through for years was brilliantly apparent. Thankfully there were a number of surfaces and hand holds that we could use to arrest any unwanted drift and everyone was clearly elated!
(that's me on the right)
Over the next 11 parabolas we did, all simulating zero gravity, we played with water floating around like globules in front of us, M&Ms disbursed in the air and we even played catch with one another. I was the ball. With the water and the M&Ms, the trick was to get them fairly still floating in front of you and then figure out how to do a Homer Simpson and fly through them eating as you go. I think I only got 2 or 3 M&Ms, mostly because I wasn't using a hand hold.
All in all we had some 6 minutes of weightlessness and one and a half minutes of diminished gravity across 15 parabolas. The jet flew from the bottom of the parabolas at 24,000 feet to the top at 32,000 feet, a difference of roughly 1.5 miles. I estimate that from the "release" point, the jet threw us a little more than half a mile up into the air and let us fall back that half mile before "catching" us.
After romping around in our playground over the Atlantic, we headed back to the Kennedy Space Center, landing again at the Shuttle landing facility runway. At roughly 3 miles long (15,000 feet) it is one of the longest runways in the world though unfortunately there wasn't a window near me. At 3 miles, I don't think you need to use much to stop the airplane though it seemed like a normal landing to me.
I would say of the trip, most significantly I learned that I don't have a "sea sickness" problem with zero gravity. I'm just as happy to be upside down floating around as I am to be stuck to the floor flying straight and level. I had refused the medication before the flight which turns out to have been a great idea. This will come in handy when I eventually make it into space though I probably need to try out how 6 to 8 Gs feels to see how I do with that first.
If you are interested in trying this out, Zero Gravity is the only company in the United States certified to do parabolic flight. You can also do it in Russia though I haven't tried that program. As you would imagine, it isn't cheap but you do get to keep your flight suit at the end. OK, so it is an extremely expensive flight suit! Go try it and leave a comment.
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