vomit comet?

[MidWestEwo]

So what would it take to get a shot at this?

 

[jmcquate]

Money. It's a private company for tourists

 

[MidWestEwo]

I thought it was some kind of training for astronauts. I feel pretty dumb now!

 

[Random Task]

$5000 will get you a ride

 

[Flash]

The video shows the 727 that the 'Zero Gravity Corporation' uses to provide a weightless environment. NASA and the ESA/CNES also have their own aircraft, a C-9B and A300 respectively, that provide training for astronauts. Russia and Ecuador also have aircraft that do the same.

 

[MIDNJAC]

As an mechanical engineering undergrad in college I participated in the NASA reduced/microgravity flight program, and we all rode on it for free (to conduct our experiments). Really cool experience for sure; we were the last group to ride the 707 as later that year (2004) they transitioned to the ex-Navy C-9 that they use now.

 

[Cron]

we all rode on it for free (to conduct our experiments)

Such as backflips, barrel rolls, and seeing who yaks first?

 

[statesman]

In API during one of our breaks our Engines teacher showed us a video of the NASA guys who brought a cat into the vomit commit. That was entertaining.


EDIT: Found it. Poor quality but it gets the point across

 

[desertoasis]

That cat is freaking the hell out...

Thanks for making my day!

 

[Rass]

+1

that is hilarious!!!!

 

[Kycntryboy]

How long are they doing the zero G pushes for like twenty seconds at a time or something? For someone else more knowledgable about this stuff, won't that eventually take it's toll on the engine from oil, or are their engines modified to cope.

 

[eDennis]

on their website it says you will have appx 8mins of weightlessness ...based on my calculations its more like 7. That's a little more then $700/min of weightlessness. I would pay for 1 minute, then ask them to buckle me down for the rest of the ride.. i'm trying to fly on a budget

 

[usmarinemike]

They had a contest on the radio in Atlanta to get something like a few dozen people up in this thing.

The people in the first video all look like they dropped acid before they went flying. And $5000? You better at least get my ass pretty close to ZERO g's for those kind of bills. The people in the video were still looking pretty damn heavy to me.

If I paid 5 grand and didn't get close to weightless I would probably look like an asshat trying to convince myself that this shitty carnival ride is fun, too.

 

[BACONATOR]

They had a contest on the radio in Atlanta to get something like a few dozen people up in this thing.

The people in the first video all look like they dropped acid before they went flying. And $5000? You better at least get my ass pretty close to ZERO g's for those kind of bills. The people in the video were still looking pretty damn heavy to me.

If I paid 5 grand and didn't get close to weightless I would probably look like an asshat trying to convince myself that this shitty carnival ride is fun, too.

Micro-gravity and zero-G aren't exactly the same thing. Wiki is your friend.

 

[HH-60H]

Micro-gravity and zero-G aren't exactly the same thing. Wiki is your friend.

A micro-g environment (also µg, often referred to by the term microgravity) is one where the acceleration induced by gravity has little or no measurable effect, gravity itself does not change.[1] The only three methods of creating a micro-g environment are to travel far enough into deep space so as to reduce the effect of gravity by attenuation, by falling, and by orbiting a planet. The terms weightlessness and Zero-G refer to this same environment.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Micro-g_environment