You've heard of the zero G plane, right?
The one that flies and does parabolas
and makes you feel weightless, the one that Kate Upton did
her photo shoot on?
Yeah, that one.
Well, I got the chance to chat with the Vomit Comet veteran.
Emily Calandrelli is an aerospace grad from MIT.
She also has a new show coming up
on Fox in the fall called "Exploration Outer Space."
You should check it out.
But coolest of all, Emily has gotten the chance
to go up in the Vomit Comet twice.
She's going to answer all your questions about the experience
and how you can go up in that plane.
OK, here's Emily.
My name's Emily Calandrelli and I'm
a host and co-producer of "Exploration Outer
Space" on Fox.
So the plane flies in parabolic motion.
And so at the very top of the parabola,
that's where you get that 20 to 25 seconds of weightlessness.
And you don't feel like the plane
is diving towards the ground, with it
is, which is terrifying.
It's kind of like a really large roller coaster.
And when you're in a roller coaster and you go over a hump,
that's when your butt lifts off the seat
and you get that weightless feeling.
Your stomach drops.
That's the feeling you get when you
go over the hump in the Vomit Comet.
When you go to the bottom of the hump,
that's when you get 1.8 two times your gravity.
And so you get these waves of weightlessness.
And then you feel twice gravity.
And then you get weightless and then
you feel twice your weight.
And so that feeling is what gives the Vomit Comet its name,
because doing that over and over and over again is not natural
and it makes your body sick.
It always sucks to answer that question because I
want to be like, no, I did not.
But I did.
They call it microgravity for a reason, like micro 2
to the negative 6.
It's not perfectly zero gravity.
They actually have a scale in the plane that tells you, like,
0.001 gravity.
It tells you where you're at in terms
of how weightless you feel.
And it's never zero.
So if you are not near a wall, you're not near a ceiling,
you're not near the ground, you can't go anywhere.
There's nothing for you to push off of.
And so it's funny, because when you see people experiencing
zero gravity for the first time, their natural reaction is
to bicycle kick, because they think that that can help
control their orientation, but it can't.
So you're just tumbling in the middle of this aircraft
and you're not going anywhere.
But you're flailing like you can.
And so most people when they experience
this for the first time, they look ridiculous.
I did too.
So safety on this aircraft is the most important thing
for them.
And they have a bunch of people to help you not kick people
in the face.
I think that's the priority.
Because you see these people and they're bicycle kicking
and they can't control their bodies.
It's not really their fault. This
is a new experience for them.
FEMALE VOICE: So did you kick anyone in the face?
Yeah, I definitely did.
Definitely kicked some people in the face.
Sorry!
So I got involved in this Vomit Comet stuff
by joining a microgravity research class.
And I was with five other students
and we created experiments that we
wanted to test in zero gravity.
So my experiment in undergrad was
we were testing fractals under zero gravity,
under the zero gravity environment.
We were injecting different types of oils
into water to see the viscous fluid and watched
it fractaled in zero gravity conditions.
I also worked on an experiment where
we tested a circular hydraulic jump in zero gravity.
There was one that was really cool.
There was a woman who was strapped down
to a treadmill who was trying to run in zero gravity.
They had an oven on my flight.
They were trying to find ways to cook different things in zero
gravity.
So that's the best way to get on the Vomit Comet
is if you have research that you want to do in zero gravity.
They have an undergrad program and a graduate program,
and you can apply to NASA online.
And if your team gets selected, you
get flown to Houston to fly on the Vomit Comet.
I feel like this would be an experience
that everybody should have.
But you need an extra $5,000 or $6,000 lying around to do it,
unfortunately.
I recommend it to everybody with a body.
Because you get to experience a little bit of the experience
that astronauts get when they go to outer space.
And the two things that astronauts
say are the most exciting part of outer space
are one, the view.
The view is spectacular.
But two, the microgravity experience,
the floating in zero gravity for a longer period of time.
So if you get to have one of two of the things
that astronauts say is the best part of going to outer space,
you should probably do that.
Next week, I'll be posting a video
on the physics of the Vomit Comet.
So subscribe to my channel for that.
I'll also post a link in the comments when it's up.