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Blogging a Ride on the 'Vomit Comet'

Posted by simoniker on from the what-goes-up dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Four Duke engineering students have launched a weblog to document their preparations and impending ride on NASA's 'vomit comet.' The students will study the effects of microgravity on the shapes of cells and the positions of their organelles, such as the nucleus. The schedule is subject to change, but the students expect to take their 12,000 foot plunges Monday in NASA's KC-135A. They plan to provide photos and video."

7 of 117 comments (clear)

  1. Re:How do they reduce gravity? by sotonboy · · Score: 2, Informative

    Put the plane into a dive accellerating at g. Effectively the occupants are in free fall but it feels like there no gravity.

  2. a blog for a 30 second long event ? by Gopal.V · · Score: 3, Informative

    > 12,000 foot plunges

    s = ut + 1/2 a * t * t;

    with a vertical velocity of 0 from the dive ...

    that makes it

    t* t = 819.something ...

    makes it less than 30 seconds of no gravity ??

    And add the final deceleration when g-forces really pull you down ? ...

    *vomit* ...

    throwing up and seeing it form a perfect sphere of liquid puke (cohesion in no gravity should be strong enough) is worth the trip.. especially if you blow it towards someone else :)

    --
    Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur
    1. Re:a blog for a 30 second long event ? by Beelzy · · Score: 2, Informative

      Right. I flew on the vomit comet (they prefer to use the term Weightless Wonder) a couple years ago as part of this same program. It is approx. 30 seconds of 0-G followed by 30-45 seconds of 2-G. And those 2-G's come on quick, so the flight director on board yells "Feet down, coming out." at the end of every parabola so that you don't end up smashing your face into the floor of the cabin. As far as vomit goes, they give much training prior to the flight on what to do if you're going to toss cookies.. they give you two vomit bags to stuff into the chest of your flight suit for quick access to your mouth. They also give you a double dose of motion sickness medicine the morning of your flight.

  3. Re:How do they reduce gravity? by Jason1729 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Anything in free-fall is effectively at zero gravity. The plane climbs to a high altitude and goes into a dive.

    The ISS is at an altitude of about 370km. With Earth having a diameter of 6000km and using Newton's Law of Universal Gravitation, the gravity on the space station should be 88% of what it is on earth's suface. (6000/6370)^2.

    The reason it is a zero gravity environment is because it is orbiting the Earth. That means it is effectively in freefall, always falling towards the Earth, but it has enough sideways motion that it keeps falling around the planet.

    Jason
    ProfQuotes

  4. Not quite OT... by alexatrit · · Score: 3, Informative

    Quite a few of the scenes in Apollo 13 were filmed onboard the KC-135, which is why the weightless "effects" look so good -- they're real.

    --

    Nothing but the finest in meaningless drivel
  5. Organelles? by spellraiser · · Score: 2, Informative

    Sounds like a pastry or something. Better look it up ...

    organelle n.
    A differentiated structure within a cell, such as a mitochondrion, vacuole, or chloroplast, that performs a specific function.

    Great, that sure clears things up! The submitter should have said mitochondrion, vacuole, or chloroplast in the first place though ...

    --
    I hear there's rumors on the Slashdots
  6. Photographs of Experiments by ghack · · Score: 2, Informative

    NASA already provides tons of photographs of previous experiments

    http://zerog.jsc.nasa.gov/studentmain.html