NASA Retires Vomit Comet

Mr. Christmas Lights writes "NASA just retired the last of the KC-135 'vomit comets' which were used for reduced (and zero-g) gravity research by flying a parabolic trajectory for about 25 seconds of Zero-G. Two of these planes (originally Air Force aerial tankers) were used with the first one being retired in 2000. /. readers will be happy to know that among the various achievements was 'at least 285 gallons of vomit' .. although unknown how much when it was used for filming the Apollo 13 movie. NASA is replacing the KC-135's with a DC-9. There is some personal significance for me in that my father flew this airplane in the 1970's for the (real) Apollo astronauts ... he commented that maintaining the Zero-G profile was accomplished not by using the sensitive G-Meter, but by hanging a nut from a string in the cockpit ... if it drops, push forward, if it raises, pull back - simple but effective. There is a recent commercial offering in this area where for a measly $3,000, you can go for a ride in Gravity One ."

Comments

Poor Engineering

[pipingguy]

he commented that maintaining the Zero-G profile was accomplished not by using the sensitive G-Meter, but by hanging a nut from a string in the cockpit ... if it drops, push forward, if it raises, pull back - simple but effective.

My, how far we have come. Nows it's all about thrust-vectoring, F-16 style fly by wire and HUDs. The original test pilots were literally flying by the seat of their pants.

I wonder why larger planes aren't being used for this type of work.

Re:Poor Engineering

[Gogo Dodo]

One thing I noticed in the video of SpaceShipOne was a ping pong ball attached to a string in front of the pilot. It looked like some kind of visual attitude indicator. There was mention of it on the Discovery Channel special (some comment about it working great), but I didn't catch what it was actually there for. So old engineering tricks haven't gone completely out of style.

Little vomit on the movie

[fm6]

Heard Tom Hanks talk about the making of A13. Turns out he didn't get sick unless he forgot to take his Scopdex. Never used Scopdex? Not suprising, since it's a combination of scopolamine and dexedrine. Just say no!

Re:Little vomit on the movie

[Jormundgandr]

So you're saying that they actually used this thing to make Apollo 13!? All this time I thought they were on wires! That is just hellacool.

Re:Little vomit on the movie

[plover]

Of course. Only the scenes that actually showed the crew "free" were filmed aboard the vomit comet. The rest were filmed on a sound stage. The plane was far too expensive to waste time filming the mundane scenes where the lack of zero G wasn't discernable from the shot.

An interesting "rumor" I heard about the movie was that the NASA geeks were given a special private preview screening of the film. The old timers all wanted to know where they got the footage of the launches, because they had seen it all before and didn't recognize it. Ron Howard had to explain to the guys that it was computer generated, and that not a single frame was old original footage. It was so realistic that several of them couldn't believe it was CGI.

I actually rode on the Comet...

[bergeron76]

It's highly recommended. After the first parabola you start feel uneasy while simultaneously feeling excited and deeply stimulated. Going into the second "Zero-G" (the steepest of the paraBOLUAAAGGGGHHHRRRRRUUUUGGGGGARRGGGGFFFFH...