Slashdot Mirror
Zero Gravity Flights for the Rest of Us
waynegoode writes "Zero G Corporation, whose motto is "Question Gravity", is now offering zero gravity flights to the general public. For $3000 you get training and a 90 minute ride with 15 periods of 25 seconds of low or zero-gravity: 3 1/3 Mars gravity, 3 1/6 Lunar gravity, and 9 zero gravity. Peter Diamandis, the man behind the Ansari X Prize, worked 11 years to get FAA approval. Previously, such flights were available only to astronauts, researchers, and Tom Hanks; although recently flights for the public began Russia for about twice the price. Story also here."
The porn industry would do it first!
Come to think about it, maybe they'll start using this as well, though 25 seconds isn't very long.
Simply take a bottle full of Ipecac and save yourself a few thousand dollars.
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
...I just drink copious amounts of Jagermeister. Works like a charm, and it's a hell of a lot cheaper.
"Gravity isn't just a good idea, it's the law" - Author Unknown
Now, to gravitate to the story...
Soko
"Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm." - Anonymous
Consider that sky-diving can also offer you zero-g styled environment and it almost seems like a ripoff. If you were doing serious research it would be worth the cash but just for the sensation of free fall you can do better for less.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
Xeni Jardin, over at Boingboing.net has a ticket and is blogging the experience.
Warning! Keep Out of Eyes! Wash Out with Water! Don't Drink Soap! Dilute! Dilute!
That's relatively affordable for the uniqueness of the experience. And hey, maybe even more affordable. Since I write science fiction novels with such low-gravity and free-fall environments, I bet I could write this off! Whoo hoo!
Professor of Astronomy, Author of Spider Star & Star Dragon (Tor)
Just find a road with some small hills and go fast enough to just become airborne. Always got a kick out of that as a kid in the back of my parents station wagon. May be short lived, but it's cheep!
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
In case anyone's interested, skydiving is a cheaper way of obtaining a similar experience. The primary difference with skydiving is the lack of walls.
That and the big flat thing rushing towards you at ~140 mph.
Remain calm! All is well!
All orbit is is free fall with enough horizontal velocity to match. Orbit simply is fast free fall. Zero-g exists in orbit. How is this different?
Rhymes that keep their secrets will unfold behind the clouds.There upon the rainbow is the answer to a neverending story
In case anyone's interested, skydiving is a cheaper way of obtaining a similar experience. The primary difference with skydiving is the lack of walls.
I would say the primary difference with skydiving is the wind... which you would not experience if you were inside a box/plane.
Actually this would be quite a different experience than skydiving due to atmospheric drag felt during a dive. Inside the plane all of the air is moving along with you and so there are no drag effects.
The secret to flying is to hurl yourself at the ground and miss. (one of the more amusing ideas from HHGG)
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Wouldnt you get a similar effect on some of the larger roller coasters? You could ride one 25 times for a days admission to a theme park.
Flying The Vomit Comet Has Its Ups And Downs. NOTE: article deserves props for it's title alone, but it's also very revealing about what getting to Zero G is like. Not sure if I'd want to do it, but it must be a crazy feeling.
CB(whr=1)
free ipod and free gmail!
It would be great, the Free Fall flights traveling, make the trips way more enjoyable. It would kick any in-flight movie's ass and I bet no one would complain about the lack of meals.
Underloved Movies and Pub Quiz: donotquestionme.org
skydiving is a cheaper way of obtaining a similar experience. The primary difference with skydiving is the lack of walls.
What about the wind?
Tried neither, but seems that sould be very different..
You can do this with a single prop plane, it'd be hard to beat 25sec but you can get a good 10sec 0 gravity in one.
Afterwards, Tom Hanks was Quoted as Saying:
"That's not Flying... That was Falling with Style!"
No wait, we don't live in a virutal world! Damn!
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
Shit, that's about all most of us nerds need :)
Hmmm.
Goddamn, who rated this informative?
:)
1) "anti-gravity space ship", what kind of rubbish is that?
2) Actually according to relativity, there is no way of distguishing between acceleration and gravity. Therefore if I put you in a sealed box and either a) leave you floating in deep space or b) put you in free fall then there is no way of you telling the difference (ok, there is as there will be slight air resistance slowing you down, and you could measure the very tiny difference in gravity between the top and bottom of the box, etc.).
There is always "c) you hit the ground" too of course
but seriously, this really is zero-G for all intents and purposes foras long as they can accalerate you downwards at 9.8m/s
Combination - fun iPhone puzzling
Well, try to remember (I know this is hard sometimes) that this company is trying to make money. I'm sure they understand the physics of their airplane rides, but to the general public "Zero Gravity" sounds a lot more exotic and exciting than "Free Falling." You can't blame them for trying to market their product.
That should read "Free-Fall Flights for the Rest of Us". Zero Gravity has a very different meaning, and hasn't been an acceptable substitute for "free-fall" in 20+ years.
Bah. This is pedantry. (on slashdot!?)
Astronauts floating in the space shuttle are experiencing 'free fall' rather than 'zero gravity'. But not many people would quibble with using the term 'zero gravity' in that instance.
The zero G experienced on this plane is the same zero G experienced by astronauts in orbiting vehicles.
And skydiving isnt very similar at all - you'll reach terminal velocity quickly and will 'feel' the force of gravity thereafter. Not to mention it's a lot windier. Skydiving on the moon on the other hand... just dont come crying to me when your parachute doesnt work.
If you're sick, take some Nyquil and then drink a glass of wine. Go directly to bed. You'll know what 0 gravity feels like! It's so awesome and only cost about 10 bucks.
My name is a variety of floral rose, and no, it's not blue
Penn Jillette of Penn & Teller rode the Comet. I was even posted on Slashdot: http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=115312 &cid=9770946
In Penn's article, he mentions another noteworthy Vomit Comet expedition: The filming of the Pr0n movie, "The Uranus Experiment."
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
I've never gone skydiving before, but I have always imagined that it feels an awful lot like falling- something which I have done. I can tell you that the feeling of weightlessness is very different from the sensation of falling. Maybe falling for quite a while makes all the difference but somehow I just don't see that it would.
Finally, if you have that $3k to spend, why not invest it in a Private Pilot Certificate so you can go out and experience it for yourself whenever you have the hankering?
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
But when you're in an airplane that's in a dive, the airplane is going to reach terminal velocity and stop accelerating much sooner than you are while inside the plane. In other words, relative to earth, both plane and person are getting the same acceleration force from gravity. But the plane is getting a much greater upwards drag force from all the wind.
So wouldn't the person in the plane start travelling faster than the airplane, since the airplane is shielding the person from the effects of wind?
Or maybe I need to take physics again...
Don't worry about that. No matter what happens, NASA technicians will most likely be able to recover some useful mission data.
To avoid the possibility any other responders to this thread demonstrate a critical need to be cracked with a cluestick:
What a person experiences in this case is *identical* to what you'd experience in Space.
You don't suddenly leave the Earths gravitational field in orbit and start floating around. You just fall in a parabola that happens to miss the ground.
One would think this was common knowledge, but from the posts on here, its clearly not.
I'm sure you'll call me a heretic, but I'd have to say it's a big *spherical* thing rushing towards you at ~140 mph.
do not read this line twice.
The plane has ENGINES. It can exceed terminal velocity in a dive.
Zero-gee is when you're in completely flat space. You're not accelerating due to gravity, because there isn't any.
Free fall is when you're in bent space, and are accelerating due to gravity. The space station is falling at one gee; but it's falling sideways, and everything in it is falling at roughly the same speed, so there's very little relative acceleration between the objects on board.
Both these terms are so badly abused that microgravity tends to be used these days instead. Which is a shame, because it's just as confusing. Free fall is a much more accurate description of what's going on.
(BTW, skydivers aren't, technically, in free fall. They're falling freely, sure, but once they reach terminal velocity they're not accelerating any more.)
a free Zero-G Tote Bag!
barf bag, tote bag - don't be such a nitpicker...
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
This is very different from skydiving and very similar to orbital flight. With typical skydiving you never actually feel a lack of acceleration force. The point is the box in this case has control surfaces and flies a parabolic arc to counter the forces of air friction, all forces of air friction are removed, and in the frame of reference inside the aircraft gravitational forces don't manifest as a perceived phenomenon. What do you think an Orbit is? It's a vehicle falling under gravity and missing the Earth because of it's velocity vector (in the Newtonian model), the two differences between this and an orbital flight are the control surfaces (and engines) on the vehicle eliminating the forces of air and the fact that the arc of motion intersects the Earth. If you call orbital flights zero-G then you should call this flight zero-G because the relevant difference air friction is eliminated with by the aircraft.
Skydiving when you exit the plane you immediately feel the force of air blasting you from the direction of flight, the speed of the aircraft is enough that this force is some significant portion of 1G, it actually feels like you're falling sideways once you're used to skydiving, skydivers call this "the hill". Eventually as you fall the forward motion is eliminated as you accelerate downwards but again it just feels like the vector from which the air is pushing you has changed. From then on you're lying on a cushion of air with a full 1G of gravity, and you feel this. Skydivers do seek the thrill of weightlessness by jumping from relatively stationary platforms, like Helicopters or Hot Air Balloons, unlike normal skydiving from an moving plane you get that lump in your throat "I'm falling" feeling for a few seconds at the start of the jump. Same with BASE jumping.
No way can I afford $3000, but can I take 9 of my buddies and each pay $300? Here's the itinerary guys:
Lunar-G flights: Moonwalk competition.
Mars-G flights: Martian wrestling. (Imagine the bodyslams!)
Zero-G flights: Zero-G dodgeball, baby!
I'm giggling already.
Or just go to Carowinds and ride the Drop Zone ride, which drops 16 stories, straight down.
Total cost = $33 admission
Keep the other $2,967 in your pocket.
It's just that they have a rather odd diagram on there showing when the freefall periods occur. It doesn't look right to me.
It shows you get "zero g" (freefall) from the point where the aircraft starts to level off from a climb, until it starts to tip over... surely the freefall would occur from when it started to tip over until it started to pull up ?
in a glider, you can fly in zero-gravity for about 5 or 10 seconds. If you like the idea, go to the nearest airfield and ask them, it's fun. Price should be around 30 dollars for a flight for non-members. But you can't run around at zero gravity, because you'll be wearing a 4 or 5-point seat belt. (pssst... glider acrobatics are even more fun, but that varies between -2g and +5g)
Okay... I'll do the stupid things first, then you shy people follow.
[Zappa]
You have a profoundly flawed understanding of physics. The only difference falling in a plane and falling in an orbiting spacecraft is the air friction. The orbiting spacecraft misses the Earth thanks to it's velocity. The aircraft in this case counterracts the forces on air friction *nothing else*. So you're as weightless as you would be in space, and in fact it is *exactly* like an orbit in a physical sense when you're inside the plane.
Actually, they'd be fine. As the plane pulls out of the dive, "gravity" gradually increases back to one G.
Douglas Adams is lucky he's dead. I tried missing the ground and broke my nose.
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
Listen shrub,
I'm in a plane with no windows. Some force is keeping my feet on the floor and giving me the sensation of weight. I take two balls out of my pockets. I drop them.
If the balls fall straight down in parallel paths, I am undergoing constant acceleration.
If the balls do not fall in parallel paths, but rather land closer together, I am feeling the effects of gravity and the two paths intersect at the center of gravity for the system.
Yes, some theoretical gravity field with a center of gravity at an infinite distance will cause objects to fall in parallel paths. The real gravity field affecting the plane, the balls, and me is not such a field, and can be distinguished from constant acceleration.
Actually, methods of determining an un-seen source of 'gravity' (under influence of planet, rotating space station, constant acceleration in a straight line) was in the first problem set on the first of class in freshman physics. See what you would of learned if you had gone to class?
What's funny is that they could only afford to the dive a couple of times, so they only have a little bit of footage. But there is other footage where they "simulate" zero-g with very tacky and hysterical porn special effects.
It's not a very good video. Although it does have some killer 3d special effects, that appear to be done with 3ds r4.
- Derek
Treat me like a marketing stat, and I'll treat your movie like a series of ones and zeros
When I went nearly half the experimenters got quite sick. The smart groups made the experiments automated and spend the time doing flying kicks and walking up walls. Or, of course, Vomiting. Nasa hates the name Vomit Comet, but everyone calls it that. A problem was the camera people would come up to you on the plane while you were frantically working to make your project work due to some bug you missed before hand. When they come you are suppose to smile and wave and say hi to folks at home that will get shown the video. This is rather bad for a serious project that has 10k+ invested in it for plane tickets and hotel rooms.
For some great photos of flights try http://zerog.jsc.nasa.gov/2004SpringCollegeCampaig n/viewer.cgi
I'd say more, but my guild is raiding.
You all want to do this, if only for the opportunity to open up a bag of potato chips then gobble them up pacman-style.
Hmm, don't think there is that much office space near Ellington field. Mostly restricted government areas that you get shot at by National Guardsmen for taking photos of. The KC-135 is done anyway. Too old and time for a very expensive C check, so it is now time for a DC-9 to do the Job. The folks at Ellington are much happier, even if it is smaller than the 707, it has better engines and has much more ease of control.
I'd say more, but my guild is raiding.
For three grand, I would hope they include a change of clothing in the package.
If I want to experience a few seconds of 0 gravity ill just fly southwestern airlines again.
"pardon me son, did we land or were we shot down?"
I am Jack's complete lack of surprise. -Fight Club
I can't believe that nobody else has pointed out something mentioned at the end of the article: They are going to be using regular cargo aircraft that are temporarily reconfigured for the 0G flights, and have been awarded a patent for this idea.
When I first read the story, up until I went to the company's web site, I thought the company selling the rides was Zero G Software. They make InstallAnywhere, a product I've used extensively. I thought it was a cool tie-in and a great way to get the company noticed.
Oh well, so much for the free ride for using their product to bundle our product...
The public road is far too uncontrolled. And everyone outside of trained stunt drivers are too uncontrolled as well.
My (our) roads are not your playground.
Any unexpected cleanup of the plane interior after the flight may cost you extra.
We've actually done the free fall experience in Cessna 172's. I think all those Cessna's are rated for 0G or even -1G or more no problem. Of course, it is no where near 25 seconds long, but we were still cackling like crazy kids.
Simply fly long up and down swoops. When you arch over the top and start to descend, the pilot controls the rate so that everything in the cabin lifts up and floats. I spun my 35mm camera in front of me, hanging in the air, so you get a few seconds. Quite a rush.
It's a little hard fly like superman on a roller coaster, even if the roller coaster is called "fly like superman roller coaster".
You probably can fly like superman for a little bit if you wiggle out of your harness, it's just the landing would be very unsuperman-like.
I worked for a charter airline, and we were approached by someone wanting to do something like this... probably 1997ish. They wanted to take some of our cargo planes, slap some FedEx PeoplePaks in them, and have them fly these sorts of flights during the day (when cargo planes are normally idle).
The scary thing is that most cargo planes are cargo planes because they're too freakin' OLD for sane passengers to fly in.
Now, okay, I'm no aeronautical engineer, but I can't imagine taking those creaky old (many older than I am; see sig) birds and doing *anything* weird with them. The whole time I was in freefall, I'd be thinking, "okay, is this going to stop, or did the wings fall off?"
Okay, so the things would be all but unloaded, compared to hauling cargo, but still... seems like the stresses would be *different*. (Their FAQ doesn't exactly answer this straightforwardly, either.)
Hmm. Nowhere on their website am I finding the tail number for their bird. Could be one of our 727-200's, but the airline I worked for hasn't updated its website since, well, about the time I left in 1998. Oh, wait. Nope, looks like it's Amerijet N994AJ.
Heh. The reason the Zero-G website only shows the left side of the plane is because the right side is a Diet Rite ad.
Slashdot's token middle-aged housewife
It's possible that if it was a cone, or even just a plane at the right angle, he'd be able to slide down it.
It would have to be almost 90 degrees of course, and it would have to level out so that he slows down, but if it's convex, angled correctly, steep enough for long enough at the top and shallow enough for long enough at the bottom, there's no reason (other than failure to get really, really lucky) that he couldn't survive.
Zero-g doesn't exist anywhere in our universe
How do you know? Imagine an experimental method for determining that a region of space has zero gravitational field (or zero space-time curvature, if you like). How would that method distinguish the zero curvature from free-fall?
Note, in particular, the problem of establishing a "fixed" frame of reference in space-time. Perhaps that is what Einstein was talking about when he called his theory "General RELATIVITY."
You flakes are all getting worked up into a lather about something that is nowhere near as clear-cut as you make it out to be, and a careful consideration of the facts should make that clear to you, if you spent as much effort on asking yourself difficult questions as you do lambasting others.
Note also that it is by no means obvious, for instance, that "looking out the window" of the spacecraft and seeing a planet rotating "below" you means that you are in orbit around the planet. It is only clear if you know that the thing out the window has MASS. How do you really know it has mass? Through gravity? Well, that's a circular argument, isn't it?
In fact, it is easy to imagine that you *could* set up masses around you to cancel out the gravitational fields of every other object. Putting yourself *inside* a massive spherical shell would be a good start. Then, add small lumps to the spherical shell to cancel out the residual effects of far-away bodies.
The Zero group has been offering 0-g flights in Kiruna, Sweden, using a special built russian air-plane since last year, and made their first "space-tourist"-flights this year in April (at least they were supposed to but I couldn't find a source actually confirming it with my 5 minutes of googling...). One of the people from there made a presentation at my university in December and said they charged ~$/4000 for it. They are also supposed to used special equipment and lighting inside the cabin to make the flight even more interesting than just having low gravity.
Give me a job. Please?
Well, not exactly for free. I put a crapload of effort into it.
I got to fly in the the Weightless Wonder (aka V**** C****) as part of a collegiate student program this past April. All told, we flew 30 micro-g parabolas, 1 lunar parabola, and 1 martian parabola. Let me say this: roller coasters, jumping cars over hills, even piloting gliders do not come close to comparing. Even when piloting an aircraft, you don't have the ability to get up and move around...there's that darn steering part to take care of.
For $3000, if the track record and maintenence records are clean, I would definitely do it again (granted I plan ahead for this as simply an expensive vacation). Especially since I won't have to be preoccupied with any experiments.
Might I suggest: anyone who is in a science-based major in college should try to come up with an experiment that would yield "intriguing" results when flown in microgravity. Remember, each trial must last a maximum of 25 seconds. And the more hands-off (and more automated), the better...that just means more fun for you.
IWARS.
People, in general, disappoint me. Politicians even more so.