WEIGHTLESS ABOVE THE ATLANTIC OCEAN – Science teacher Mike Hickey has long understood the difference between mass and weight. Now, floating in zero gravity, he doesn’t just understand it, he feels it.
The 54-year-old Cleveland high school teacher is giggling like a middle-schooler with a crush: “Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. I still have mass. No weight.”
Hickey, all 197 pounds of him, is drifting along with 38 other teachers inside a specially modified jet diving over the Atlantic Ocean.
After this, Hickey figures it will be simple to get his students to understand mass versus weight. The kids will see on video “this fat old man floating around like there was no weight there at all … I definitely lost weight. I lost ALL my weight.”
Zero gravity, once an exclusive playground for astronauts and select scientists, is no longer out of reach to everyday people. Millionaires, doctors, and teachers are feeling the fleeting freedom of weightlessness. The price is less than $4,000 for about five minutes in zero-G.
“It’s the wave of the future,” said Syracuse University public administration and space policy professor W. Henry Lambright. “It’s part of the maturity of the space program.”
In the more than 40 years of zero-gravity flights, beginning with astronauts, the world’s two largest space agencies have flown thousands of scientists, engineers, astronauts, and even the cast and crew of the movie Apollo 13, said Alan Ladwig, former NASA associate administrator. Ladwig, now Washington space operations chief for Northrop Grumman Corp., estimates 50,000 people may have flown in zero gravity.
Five planes create zero-G conditions. NASA has one. The European Space Agency has one. The Russians have one. Two are commercially operated in the United States by Zero Gravity Corp. of Dania Beach, Fla.
The planes soar to 32,000 feet at a sharp angle and then plunge 8,000 feet so passengers can experience 25-second snippets of zero gravity during the descent. As the plane climbs, passengers experience 25 seconds of being pushed down hard, as they feel 1.8 times the normal pull of the Earth.
NASA’s first zero-gravity jet, now retired, was dubbed the “vomit comet.” The newer commercial versions, geared more toward tourists, help passengers keep breakfasts down even as they float up. Those planes have about 35 seats in the rear for takeoff and landing and a padded area in the middle where fliers float during weightless descent periods and lie pushed to the floor during super-gravity ascents.
In several flights that began in June, nearly 250 science teachers experienced weightlessness on Zero Gravity Corp.’s modified Boeing 727, which is usually aimed at private tourists willing to pay $3,750 a head for the experience. Their trips were paid for by aerospace company Northrop Grumman to encourage the teaching of science.
On Hickey’s two-hour, six-minute flight, out of Washington Dulles International Airport, the teachers felt Martian gravity (one-third of Earth’s) once, lunar gravity (one-sixth of Earth’s) four times, and zero gravity 11 times. Each of those gravity breaks produced bursts of laughter and applause as teachers went bouncing off the plane’s walls and ceilings.
They tried quick science experiments, such as weighing items, juggling and playing with a Slinky.
“It was amazing. That was so amazing,” said Tracy Cindric, a high school science teacher from Gahanna, Ohio. Hickey called the experience “an out-of-body thing.”
And that sensation is what people are looking for.
So far, about 3,000 zero-gravity tourists have paid to fly with Zero Gravity Corp., said chief executive officer Peter Diamandis. He hopes to eventually fly 10,000 people a year.
The overwhelming feeling is a sense of freedom – and disappointment over the fleeting period of weightlessness. About two or three seconds before each snippet of zero gravity was about to end, technical operations chief Matt Reyes would warn through his megaphone that everyone should point feet to the floor to avoid a headfirst landing.
“It happened so fast,” said math teacher Calley Connelly. Every time she heard Reyes give his warning, she wanted to shout back: “Nooo, let’s stay up!”
While in the air, teachers float, bump into walls, the ceiling, floor and each other, giggling all the way, trying to eat candy and catch water droplets. Nearly everyone played Superman, arms out in front, feet floating behind like the comic book character. Three teachers even put on red capes.
But trying to explain – and teach – what zero-G feels like leaves most people grasping for words. Connelly, who teaches at Howard High School in Maryland, figured it would be like a roller coaster, but it wasn’t.
“All of a sudden there was just a feeling that you can do anything – you know, very strong,” she said.
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