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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."
I would like to shake the hand of the person that came up with the name "Vomit Comet".
[simpsons]
Best...name...ever.
[/simpsons]
The preceding message was based on actual events. Only the names, locations and events have been changed.
and then dive! dive! dive! until everyone in the back starts floating.
And thats how it got the name, 'vomit comet'.
Put the plane into a dive accellerating at g. Effectively the occupants are in free fall but it feels like there no gravity.
Simple
They fly it up to a proper altitude,
then initiate a controlled stall that drops the plane pretty vertical for 30 seconds to a minute if I remember correctly. They don't reduce gravity, they just cancel it out by moving everything downwards real fast.
> 12,000 foot plunges
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...
...
:)
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
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
Your just jealous.
Besides, this isn't a space flight.
Its a KC-135. The flight itself will cost fuel and regular aircraft maintenance. Nothing more expensive then any commercial airliner.
That should be Earth has a radius of 6000km. The calculation is correct though since it uses the radius.
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
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
You actually see a scene where someone does vomit in it, but they quickly turn around or something like that. They didn't re-do the scene cause of the cost.
I realize this was originally in response to a post that got modded down, but ... jealous? Absolutely. If they could get me up onboard that thing for a few trips of weightlessness, I'd certainly pay for it. On the order of skydiving costs, anyways. I think it'd be an amazing experience, regardless of cost.
Nothing but the finest in meaningless drivel
Actually, the entire planet sucks... hence gravity.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
I like to think of it as that yes, the ISS is falling towards the Earth, its just that the Earth keeps moving out of the way.
Shape of the cells:
Flattened, fractal-shaped
Position of nucleus:
Roof, wall, the face of co-researcher 2
Test setup:
o Zero gravity
o Container with missing lid
Test verification result:
No verification was possible, container broken on impact with forehead of co-researcher 1 after container was accellerated by a furious co-researcher 2
Step 1: Obtain NASA Grant ......
Step 2:
Step 3: Vomit!
Do you or your partner snore? - Visit www.snoring.com.au
Not to be overly concerned with grossness, but are they planning on actually putting up a video of someone throwing up if it happens? If so, I believe that would be a first. I've heard astronauts talk about people throwing up, and obviously there's the plane's name, but I've never once seen a picture of it happening, or even heard one alluded to. Which really is quite remarkable since the site for NASA's KC-135 says that they've flown over 80,000 flights with it.
Actually, you can get more "freefall" time than that. I think in the case of the vomit comet, "freefall" starts even while the plane is still in a climb... cut thrust and steer it over the top of an inverted parabola.
Some thrust and steering is needed because of air resistence, so essentially you want the plane to trace the trajectory (path and velocity) of a ball thrown up in a vacuum.
The iLoo? Oh, wait, that was Microsoft...
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.
Well, it's not that they are in 'freefall' while the plane is still in a climb. Its simply their momentum wanting to keep them going up as the plane's vertical momentum stops.
Its the same as the feeling you get when you're on one of those really fast elevators often seen in gov'ment buildings. Going up, you begin to feel less gravity as the car arrives at your floor.
Hey people, how can 30 seconds of flakey microgravity compare with *WEEKS* of flakey microgravity on board the ISS? Science. Humph. Just more propaganda for elitist crap universities (versus the poor good ones). (ex Bristol UK grad in chemistry)
The russian version costs around $2000 per person for a run of about 15 parabolas.
(Based on ~10 participants). (from a space.com article)
There is also a themepark considering setting up its own version for a few thousand per person.
Initially, I thought the same as you about this, but NASA have had this program up and running, making kids throw up for a few years, it can't cost that much, and from what I've been reading its given the kids fantastic memories.
liqbase
don't know if it qualifies as 'zero G' during the free fall phase tho, considering wind resistance.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
NASA already provides tons of photographs of previous experiments
http://zerog.jsc.nasa.gov/studentmain.html
A blog! No way!
Seriously people. Duke isn't all that special. Over a hundred teams from universities around the US do this every year. Hell, I did it. Guess I know how to make the cover of slashdot come next spring/summer.
IWARS.
People, in general, disappoint me. Politicians even more so.
Hitchhiker's Guide: How to Fly - "Throw yourself at the ground and miss", a good allegory to orbiting, you just miss a whole lot.
meh
mod parent up + funny, the guys a comedy genius.
West Virginia University's done this for a few years.
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Lost Sheep to Shepard, you got your ears on?
Why don't companys offer vomit comit-like flights? At the drop of a hat I would pay $1000 for such an experience. I gather each zero-G arc is similar to a takeoff/landing cycle for the arframe, but still, a company could strip out just one plane to do it, then go city to city offering rides.
What do you think orbit is?
The thing that they are trying to test is a theory called tensegrity - the idea that changes in cell shape might be transmitted to the nucleus to alter gene expression. A couple of good reviews of this are here and here here. How changes in cells relate to whole organism physiology (like bone loss in microgravity) is a whole other can of worms, though.
I could pick apart their science, but they were very successful in doing one thing - getting a ride on the Vomit Comet. I hope they get the movies that they are after ...
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}
Technically, it does not just go into a dive straight down. It does a zero G pushover. This means that the KC-135 starts a high speed climb, as its airspeed starts to decrease, the pilots push forward on the yoke and drop the nose of the aircraft.
t ory.html
Because the aircraft is so big, it takes a while for the nose to go from nose up climb to a nose down decent (not straight down, but a steep angle...45 deg to be exact). During this "pushover", (aka parabolic maneuvers) the pilots monitor their G meter to maintain 0G. Then, the pilot pulls back on the stick and the crew feels approx 1.8G's...or, close to twice the normal force of gravity.
This process is repeated during each iteration. A great graph of this can be found on the KC135 homepage at: http://jsc-aircraft-ops.jsc.nasa.gov/kc135/trajec
Sig Return: 204 No Content
There's a good account of Penn Jillette (of Penn & Teller) and Billy Gibbons (from ZZ Top) taking a ride on a vomit comet (with video). (via Art Bell)
This sig intentionally left justified.
The all-night buses that replace the subway when it shuts down at 2am here in Toronto, Canada have the nickname "the Vomit Comet". Fortunately it's only once in a while that someone sufficiently hammered will throw up on the bus, but it does happen.
When I saw "blogging a ride on the vomit comet" I thought someone was blogging about all the strange people you meet on those buses (or ones like it). Hmmm.... that gives me an idea...
When life gives you lemons, you CLONE those lemons, and make SUPER-LEMONS. -- Dr. Cinnamon Scudworth, Ph.D
There's a film titled, "The Uranus Experiment, part II" that deals with the effects of microgravity on various biological processes, and was filmed with the Vomit Comet. It explores some very promising applications of microgravity.
So have I - the best ride was when a coworker mistakenly took the ceiling for the deck and rapidly discovered his mistake during the 2g pullout. He looked for the duct tape next time.
Riding up front was cooler - floating against the harness while the Gulf is filling the cockpit windows.
We had one poor engineer who spent an entire flight in her seat - she got violently airsick during takeoff and never recovered.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.