Slashdot Mirror

Good news! You can find out for yourself!

If all you want is to be weightless, the Vomit Comet is a much cheaper alternative for about $5,000.

If you are paying the $245,000 premium, I would think they would want to get the official astronaut status of 62 miles.

20-30 seconds is more like it.

http://www.gozerog.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Experience.How_it_Works
"For the next 20-30 seconds everything in the plane is weightless."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reduced_gravity_aircraft
"giving them about 25 seconds of weightlessness out of 65 seconds of flight in each parabola"

I used "vomit comet zero g time span" as search term in DuckDuckGo and got plenty of good hits. Four of the six I looked at reported "25-30" seconds, the same as one result from NASA; the others may use those figures but didn't specify source. I'll go with NASA's numbers because they're the ones who've done more of these flights than anyone else.

You should apply with Zero G, there is a good chance they will find your mindset encouragable!

put the jet into a 197-meter nosedive.

I've been in nose dives before.. it's awesome fun. Everyone is screaming and the assholes who refuse to keep their seatbelt fastened while seated quickly learn the *reason* why they request you to do this.

People pay good money for this experience, and with a little malfunction or two they give it to you for free. When you throw in the fact that you could very well be experiencing the last few minutes of your short pathetic little life - you can't get a better adrenaline rush.

For anyone who is curious about it, the blog says that they flew out of Las Vegas. Zero G's FAQ says that they use the Signature Air Terminal at the main airport there. Signature Air Services is basically a chain of Fixed Based Operators (FBOs). They serve business and private pilots mostly. They use the same runways, but different buildings compared to the airlines.

The Zero Gravity Corporation (http://www.gozerog.com/) alone has had over 4000 passengers on their vomit comets. I know that it is not sub orbital or orbital flight. But it does show that people will pay even if they are not the first. After the first person dished out $10-20 million to take a ride on the Soyuz spacecraft and visit the ISS, it hasn't stopped other people from doing the same. Also, Virgin Galactic (http://www.virgingalactic.com/), who does not even have the plane built yet, is already taking reservations. This is just three examples that I know of. If I were to do any research, I bet I could find a bunch more example.

Aside from the nice view, wouldn't it be better to just rent out a stripped-down 747 and go into repeated dives, like they do to train astronauts for zero-g?

There's actually already a company that offers commercial zero-gravity flights on a stripped-down 727, offering flights in Florida and Las Vegas:

http://www.gozerog.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero_Gravity_Corporat ion

That said, the impression I get is that it's not so much the weightlessness which is desirable about suborbital spaceflights, but the view.

You can have one third of the zero-gravity time for two orders of magnitude cheaper: http://www.gozerog.com/

$267,000 is a lot of cash. Why right now you can get a seat on one of those 727s that can simulate zero Gs for a mere $3,675.00. Thats affordable for almost anyone who really wants to experience it. http://www.gozerog.com/

These guys will let you experience zero G for a couple grand last I checked. I don't exactly remember what their fitness requirements are, but I believe it's fairly light.

So far we've had 80 something year old men and women fly with us...so chances are that if you seriously start saving now for it, the intersection of how much you've saved and how much the price has come down will be sooner than you think!