Raj in Zero Gravity, May 26, 2007

I thought my 40^th birthday had slipped quietly by. No fuss, no muss. I thought wrong! In honor of the Big Four Oh, Tammy surprised me this Memorial Day weekend with a quick trip to Vegas. But that’s not the gift. For my birthday, Tammy got me a ticket to defy the law of gravity.

There’s a new company called Zero G ( http://www.GoZeroG.com ), which takes people for a ride on a special airplane. It flies in parabolas, and creates the exact same kind of weightlessness you would feel in space. This is not a simulation of what an astronaut would experience in orbit. It’s the same physics. It’s the real deal. You probably saw them on the news recently when they took Stephen Hawking out of his wheel chair for a literal spin in zero gravity.

If you saw the movie Apollo 13, you saw those cool scenes where the astronauts were drifting around in zero gravity, and spinning objects. This is how they filmed it.

While Tammy went gambling, I arrived at the Zero G hotel location, and was given a spiffy jumpsuit, which I got to keep. I pictured the conversation back in the hotel room later, my fists heroically planted on my hips: “Hey, Tammy, call me Maverick!” - “Nah, you look more like Goose…”

They gave us special socks to wear, too, so no one would get kicked in the face with a gym shoe, I guess. I got to keep the socks. They’re actually quite comfy.

There were over 20 people signed up for the experience. I met all sorts of people, and every one of them had an adventurous and fun personality. They split us into three groups. What an interesting group I was in! Chris is a painter from Oregon who is studying to be a physicist. Jeremy works for NASA, designing flight systems for the new Orion spacecraft, which will take us back to the Moon. Robert is a Canadian geophysicist who worked in the Arctic Circle on the Mars habitats that are being tested up there. David is an IT guy, also from the Chicago area. Kristal is a dancer at the Paris Hotel. A diverse crowd, yet all bound by the same passion for life and adventure.

The plane looks like a room in an insane asylum. The whole thing is padded. There was certainly going to be some head bumping! It was a normal commercial aircraft, with all but the last 10 rows of seats ripped out. We sat in those seats for take-off and landing, but during the flight we would lie on the floor between weightless sessions.

The plane flew 15 parabolas. Each time, we would get about half a minute of weightlessness, where we could float or spin any way we wanted. Then we would have to lie on the floor for a minute, feeling a politely firm 2 G’s until we could get set up for the next parabola. There weren’t many windows at all, so I didn’t feel the turns. I just felt a little heavier than normal, then suddenly, it was like someone turned off the gravity switch, and I could fly!

They eased us into it by first doing Martian gravity, which is about 1/3 that of Earth. The next parabola was Lunar gravity, which is about 1/6 of Earth’s. You know, I almost preferred those moments over the totally zero-g experience. I mean, now I truly know what it is like to walk on the Moon and Mars! I still feel a sense of awe about that. It’s amazing to sit back and say that to myself.

Before each parabola, you are painfully aware you only have half a minute, so you try to plan what you are going to do with that time in zero gravity. But when the moment comes, all mayhem breaks loose. You spend a tremendous amount of time just trying to control your movements. One little push-off, and you are zinging across the plane’s cabin. People are bumping into each other. You are bumping your head on the ceiling. In the last 15 seconds or so, you get it worked out, and try to do your move. Maybe you want to do a spin, or hang upside down. Half a minute doesn’t seem like a long time when talking about it, but it’s enough time to enjoy the moment. Then they shout, “Feet Down!” and you have to first figure out which way is “down”, then gradually, the gravity gets stronger, and you float back to the floor, waiting eagerly to do it again.

For my first zero-gravity trick, I sat cross-legged on the floor and levitated up like a mystic. I did that for Sydney to see on the video. She does that on our trampoline. I thought it would be funny not to come back down.

Tammy wanted me to do two things for her. One was a flying karate kick across the airplane. I did that. You can see a snippet of it in one of the photos. Hi-yah! Eat that, Jet Li, you momma’s boy! No wussy wires for me! I had on my Sky Centers Martial Arts t-shirt underneath the jumpsuit for the occasion (that’s the dojo I train at). The other thing Tammy wanted was to see me pass the camera upside-down. I wanted to lazily drift across the screen upside down and wave. But I had tons of trouble trying to orient myself for the maneuver. Jeremy grabbed me and tried to spin me into position for it, but then the gravity came back, and the video shows us dropping like rocks off the screen. It’s even funnier this way, so I think Tammy will get a kick out of it.

When I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do in zero-g for myself, the only thing that really popped out in my mind was those Skylab astronauts tucking in their knees, balling up and spinning around and around. That looked like so much fun! So, that’s what I did. I asked our group leader Nick to spin me. Man, did he! I tucked in my knees, floating in the middle of the plane, and Nick spun me like a roulette wheel! Yee ha! I had absolutely NO IDEA which way was up when I stopped. When the parabola was ending they screamed, “Feet Down!” I un-tucked myself and stuck my feet out towards what I thought was the ceiling, figuring I’ll put my arms over my head and gently tumble down. But when the gravity came back, I started falling UP, and I realized that I was right-side up! Kind of a funny feeling to not know you are right-side up. Nick got in trouble for spinning me so hard, because they knew I wasn’t on any motion sickness meds. Oops. Oh well, luckily I felt fine! It was SO worth it!

Sometimes I just hung there during a parabola, gently floating around the cabin, just absorbing the fact that I’m weightless. That feeling alone was empowering, a near religious experience, and worth the price of admission. No tricks needed.

Another time, Nick and I tried to run around the airplane in opposite directions, like two hamsters on wheels. Nick works for NASA, managing the life-sciences aspect of the moon base they are planning (when designing the moon buggy, someone has to make sure they don’t forget the cup-holders). Nick is an old pro at zero-gravity. He easily made it look like he ran around the plane. I, however, “got stuck” upside down in the middle of the ceiling. I hung there, running in place. After we came down, one of the flight people admonished me, saying, “No swimming!” They had earlier explained that “swimming” won’t work, and kicking your legs around might hurt someone. I said, “I was running in place.” He said, “Oh, that’s OK, then.”

Finally, in one of the last parabolas, I asked Kristal for a dance. She is a professional dancer in Vegas, so I thought, what a great opportunity! She happily accepted, and we spun slowly and gracefully around the plane, dancing on air. That’s another mind-blowing memory that I’ll never forget – I danced in zero gravity! I still can’t believe I can say that!

They gave us each a bag of M&M’s. People were opening them up and floating them around, trying to catch them in their mouths. I was so pre-occupied with tumbling around and having fun, I didn’t open my bag of M&M’s (until later that day, at least. Tasty!). Jeremy opened a water bottle and squeezed out a blob for me to drink. In zero gravity, bubbles go to the middle of a drink, and water floats around like huge, undulating droplets, exactly as you’ve seen in space films. I flew like Superman, chasing down the water globule, and popped it in my mouth. Surprisingly, once it was in my mouth, it was no different than drinking water at home. Gulp. Done. Unfortunately, we didn’t drink all the water globs floating around the plane, and when the gravity comes back, it comes back for EVERYTHING inside! Splash! I had to lie in a puddle once between parabolas, pinned to the floor at nearly 2 G’s of force. I didn’t care. Nothing could wipe the smile from my face!

They set up video cameras all over the plane, and sent me a DVD (included in the package). The Zero G people definitely knew what they were doing. The whole process was run like a well-oiled machine. They took care of everything. I was jealous of the photographer. What a job! He gets to fly around with us and take pictures. Within a day, they had hundreds of fun photos of our experience on their website .

There were really only two things that were minor annoyances to the experience. The duration of the zero gravity being less than 30 seconds at a time was a downside. Just when you are really getting into it, the gravity comes back and you have to wait for the next parabola. This isn’t really something that can be controlled… unless you go into full orbit. However, half a minute feels like a longer time than I thought it would. Try sitting in a chair and just wait half a minute. The other downside was the crowding. The plane wasn’t that big. I always nearly hit my head on the ceiling of normal commercial planes, just standing there, let alone flying around in zero gravity! I wish there was some way to remove the division between the cargo area, or something which would make the interior of the plane more expansive. And there were just too many people. We were all bumping into each other and there wasn’t a lot of elbow room to get too crazy with spins and things. On the other hand, it was so cool to meet all those interesting people, and sharing this experience with them added to the enjoyment. In any event, these two things were minor, and I still had a great time.

Two of the participants were a married couple. They were 87 years old! They did great! The woman got sick about half-way thru the flight and had to sit out the rest, but she certainly got enough hang time in there. They both said they had a blast.

In signing up for the trip, they send a packet which includes a form your doctor can sign, and they will have motion sickness medication ready in Vegas. Nearly everyone did this… except me. Tammy surprised me with this trip, so I only knew about it a few days before we went. I didn’t get to prepare with any kind of medication. I called Zero G, and they said not to worry about it. They said maybe 1 in 100 people get sick doing this. Of course, I thought, that’s a test group where most people are taking the meds! I never really get motion sickness, but they said it doesn’t matter. There’s no known correlation between car sickness, plane sickness, boat sickness and space sickness. They said hardened, sea-worthy sailors and even astronauts have gotten motion sickness on these zero gravity flights. There’s just no way to tell how I’m going to react. Yikes! They kept telling me it’s no big deal, but I could tell they were keeping an eye on me. That’s why they yelled at Nick when he spun me like a roulette wheel. Truthfully, I was really curious to know if I could avoid getting “space-sick” without meds. It was a serious gamble, because the flight is expensive. But hey, this is Vegas, right? During the flight, two people got sick and had to sit out a portion of the trip. Luckily for me, I didn’t feel a tinge of motion sickness at all! Yes!

So, how exactly does it feel to be in zero gravity? That’s a bit hard to explain. Basically, astronauts are free-falling. They are truly falling around the world. Every time they fall a foot down towards the Earth, they move so far over that the ball of the Earth curves a foot down under them. They endlessly fall like this around the world. That’s what it means to be in orbit around the Earth. So, it should feel the same as sky-diving or bungee jumping, where you fall a long time, right? Nope. I’ve done both. It’s nothing like that. In zero-g, there’s no “sense of impending doom” which can really distract you! Also, there’s no rushing wind. It would be more like falling in an elevator, but thankfully, not many of us have had that experience, either! The best comparison for me was a roller coaster. You know that part when you are just coming up slowly over the top of a roller coaster hill, and you just begin to fall down the track? You know how your stomach seems to float around inside you, and your whole body just seems loosely attached and relaxed? That’s the feeling exactly. The prolonged sensation is remarkable! During the flight, we sensed no turning feelings, and I didn’t feel myself tilted as we did these huge, loopy parabolas. It was truly as if someone dialed the gravity up and down! Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain! It was also interesting to take off and land in an airplane without windows. You had to figure out what was going on purely by feel. Even the take-off and landing was made fun!

The first flights into space had about five minutes of zero-gravity. My weightless time was comparable to that. In fact, technically, I was weightless longer than the early astronauts.

This was an incredible experience, like nothing else I have ever done! It’s hard to compare to anything else. It was an experience of a life-time. Even now, whenever I talk about it or just think about it, I catch myself smiling broadly. I still feel a sense of euphoria from the memory, long after the gravity has returned.