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Kennedy Space Center, Florida - October 21, 2005 – Ever wish you could send your teacher into space?
Well Zero Gravity Corp. won’t be sending teachers all the way to space, but will give them a chance to experience the feeling of being weightless.
The flights, on November 5 – 6, will take off from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center shuttle landing facility. The “Flyers” will take off in a Boeing 727-200 called G-Force One and get a brief exposure to the same zero gravity feeling astronauts have while orbiting earth. The zero-G flights will give the teachers a chance to perform simple microgravity experiments and take back what they learn to the classroom. The flight will also simulate the gravity a person would feel on the moon and on Mars.
The flights will be the first in a series of demonstration projects by the Fort Lauderdale, Fla. company, known as Zero-G, which will help NASA develop guidelines for non-NASA use of its 15,000-foot runway.
According to Jim Kennedy, the Director of the Space Center, Zero-Gs flights will help share the experience of space flight with more people. It is hoped the flights will inspire teachers to encourage their students become the next generation of space explorers.
Zero-G and NASA also are discussing other flight activities that will support scientists and their experiments, using Kennedy Space Center’s experiment-processing capabilities.
In September, Zero-G gave two demonstration flights to NASA officials that allowed them to evaluate the potential of G-Force One. This is especially important because NASA retired its own "Weightless Wonder" KC-135 research airplane in October 2004.
So you’re not a teacher but still want to go weightless? You can be officially “Weightless Certified.” All you need is $3,700 - $4,200, plus tax. Four flights will depart from Fort Lauderdale or Titusville, Fla., in November. One is already sold out.
More than 1,250 people have already experienced weightlessness with Zero-G within the last year.
So how does weightless flight work?
- Specially trained pilots flying through a parabolic flight maneuver between 24,000 and 34,000 feet altitude achieve weightless flight.
- Each parabola takes 10 miles of airspace to perform and lasts about one minute from start to finish.
- The Zero-G Web site describes the maneuver as somewhat like a roller coaster. That the plane is initially pulled up to approximately 45 degrees ‘nose high.’ Next, the plane is ‘pushed over’ the top to reach the zero gravity segment of the parabolas. For the next 25 – 30 seconds everything in the plane is weightless. At approximately 30 degrees ‘nose low’ a gentle pull-out is started, allowing flyers to stabilize on the aircraft floor. Finally, the G-force is increased smoothly to about 1.8 Gs until the aircraft reaches a flight altitude of 24,000 feet. The maneuver is then repeated.
- •In addition to achieving zero-G or weightlessness, G-Force One can also fly a parabola designed to offer Lunar (1/6th of Earth’s gravity) or Martian (1/3rd of Earth’s gravity) gravity. These reduced gravity environments are also created with a modified parabola that is not quite as steep as zero-G parabola.
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G-Force One, the 727-200 that is equipped to give people a zero gravity flight, awaits its next customers.
Think flying in space would be fun? These people look like they would agree! While not all the way in space, they are experiencing zero-G conditions on board a G-Force One flight.
G-Force One is will be giving some lucky teachers a chance to experience the feeling of being weightless, like in space, next month. The flights will launch from the NASA Kennedy Space Center’s shuttle landing facility in Florida.
Learn More
Zero-G Corporation
NASA Kennedy Space Center
What is a “G”?
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