Slashdot Mirror
Blogging a Ride on the 'Vomit Comet'
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."
Zero Gravity Corporation (ZERO-G) is booking seats for Vomit-Comet-like weightless flights. The 'ZERO-G Experience' has 20 parabolas--made up of Martian (1/3 gravity), lunar (1/6 gravity) and zero gravity parabolas--and costs $2,950 per seat. Peter Diamandis (founder of the Ansari X Prize) is the CEO.
I rode the Vomit Comit back in 1987, as a research participant in Space Adaptation Syndrome (i.e. zero-g motion sickness) studies at the Ashton Graybiel Spatial Orientation Lab at Brandeis University. We did 2 or 3 days worth of flights, essentially a 2-mile high roller coaster (40 or so 10,000-foot parabolae with 30 seconds of zero-g at the top of each parabola) over the Gulf of Mexico, and it was truly one of the most amazing experiences of my life. While I didn't get to do the zero-g acrobatics you've seen on TV or in "Apollo 13" (I was doing baseline susceptibility studies, and was seated), I had the fun experience of being hit while blindfolded by a floating teddy bear in a space suit. While I never got to go back (scheduling problems, an engine failure on the ground prior to a flight, etc.), I wouldn't have missed it for the world. And while I only vomited once (some professional researchers were so susceptible that they had to sit out the second and third days to recover), I will tell you that the smell of a padded aircraft cabin with poor ventilation after one of those flights was...powerful. {Professor Jonathan Ezor, Touro Law Center}