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Howdy guys! Just rolled back in from my trip to Houston to the Johnson Space Center. As you might have noticed in a previous thread, I've been working for NASA doing research and getting the opportunity to fly on the KC-135 Weightless Wonder Zero-G plane. Well, last Thursday was my flight date, and I've now got 32 ~30 second parabolas under my belt.

Here's some pics from the trip, all the pics of me in zero-G were taken by NASA and with the use of a friends pic, and I'll post them up once they become available.

A beauty shot of the KC-135 the morning before the flight. Note the WB-57 in the background, one of 2 based at Ellington Field (where we were at) and the last 2 still flying:


One of the fifty-sevens in the hangar where we worked on finalizing our project:


Our project the day of the TRR (Test Readiness Review):


The -135 just before the flight:


Me before boarding:

Wow, nice pictures from an opportunity of a lifetime. I can't wait for the zero-G pictures from inside the plane. Curious though..did anyone actually get sick in the "vomit comet"?

Well, 3 people did on my flight, along with one on the ground afterwards.

I must confess that at the end of the flight, I began to feel queasy, but that wasn't because of the zero-g or extended (about 1 to 1.5 minute) 2-g itself, and wasn't too serious. One of the key no-puke rules is to not move your head around alot (move your body, not your neck, otherwise your inner ear gets really really screwed up). Towards the end of the flight, our data aquisition system had a small problem. While doing repairs during a zero-g period, and keeping an eye on it afterwards, I moved my head around like an idiot. That, and I didn't take the full dosage of the anti-motion sickness meds.

But there were people alot worse off than I was.

Fucking awesome I asume it was. As much as I would love to ride the Vomit Comit, I 'd rather stick with my current multiple positives.

Wicked Pilot wrote:Fucking awesome I asume it was. As much as I would love to ride the Vomit Comit, I 'd rather stick with my current multiple positives.

I could imagine. I was about to die sitting there watching NASA T-38s taking off every hour or so. Damn that's a good looking airplane.

Nathan F wrote:I could imagine. I was about to die sitting there watching NASA T-38s taking off every hour or so. Damn that's a good looking airplane.

You can see a lot of cool shit while sitting around Ellington. When I was gas'n and go'n the over there the other day in my Tweet, I saw several NASA and USAF T-38s, an A-10, ANG F-16s, a USN S-3, and some USCG choppers. The place is a military aviation mecca. Did you get to visit Southwest Services while you were out there? That place is the mack daddy of FBOs.

Cool. Too much orange though.

Somehow, I had always imagined that you would look a bit less like Gumby than you do.

Darth Wong wrote:Somehow, I had always imagined that you would look a bit less like Gumby than you do.

I'm assuming you mean the green flight suit...

Cool. What was your project about?

Shroom Man 777 wrote:Cool. What was your project about?

In a microgravity environment, when water flows through a pipe it flows along the outer edge of the pipe due to a lack of gravity holding it to the bottom. This is called annular flow. We were studying the effects of condensation inside the open area in the center of the pipe, and heat transfer between the water and fog in a controlled environment. We were also confirming the effectiveness of annular flow in the brief 25-30 second microgravity environment provided by the KC-135.

If you want to read the full report (or anyone for that matter), I can email you the full test report as soon as it is made available.

Wicked Pilot wrote:

Nathan F wrote:I could imagine. I was about to die sitting there watching NASA T-38s taking off every hour or so. Damn that's a good looking airplane.

You can see a lot of cool shit while sitting around Ellington. When I was gas'n and go'n the over there the other day in my Tweet, I say several NASA and USAF T-38s, an A-10, ANG F-16s, a USN S-3, and some USCG choppers. The place is a military aviation mecca. Did you get to visit Southwest Services while you were out there? That place is the mack daddy of FBOs.

Whoa, I think you might have been there the same time we were...

There was an A-10 on the ramp one day, as well as the ever present F-16s (based at the Texas ANG base there at Ellington). I don't recall seeing an S-3, but that's not to say there wasn't one around. There were alot of USN ops going on while we were there. A Navy DC-9 had just been delivered to begin refit ops as the next Weightless Wonder, and a flight of F-18s was there for about 4 days.

What days were you passing through?

Cool stuff. You are one lucky man.

Nathan F wrote:What days were you passing through?

According to my records, I landed there at 1637, and took off at 1837 on February 20th.

Nathan F wrote:
In a microgravity environment, when water flows through a pipe it flows along the outer edge of the pipe due to a lack of gravity holding it to the bottom. This is called annular flow. *snip*

Uhh....okay. How important is this project? How much did you get paid?

Was it like all serious in the plane or were you all going "woo-hoo, the meatball's floating up my throat!"? Man, I'd love to be in NASA! Sounds like you guys were just goofing off and having fun.

Wicked Pilot wrote:

Nathan F wrote:What days were you passing through?

According to my records, I landed there at 1637, and took off at 1837 on February 20th.

Ah, well, we were just there last week.

Shroom Man 777 wrote:

Nathan F wrote:
In a microgravity environment, when water flows through a pipe it flows along the outer edge of the pipe due to a lack of gravity holding it to the bottom. This is called annular flow. *snip*

Uhh....okay. How important is this project? How much did you get paid?

Was it like all serious in the plane or were you all going "woo-hoo, the meatball's floating up my throat!"? Man, I'd love to be in NASA! Sounds like you guys were just goofing off and having fun.

Well, the project was serious research. It's information that NASA might use when designing the next space vehicles and stations, especially in designing power generation and cooling systems. As for getting paid, we were just paid living stipends for our time down there.

When we were on the plane, the project took the priority over the fun, there were quite a few parabolas in which we were having to keep an eye on it. But when we weren't making adjustments or fixing problems, we were goofing around, doing cartwheels and such. It was a blast.