Mr. Hendrix flies weightless

Posted on 01. Dec, 2009 by joannagreer in News Around School

By Mr. Juan Hendrix, Science Department

The weightless experience was exhilarating.  It was the closest that I will come to being in space.  The opportunity came courtesy of Northrop-Grumman which sponsors teachers to fly with a company called Zero G that actually operates the flights.

Hundreds of teachers have had this awesome ride for free. The general public has to pay about five thousand dollars.

This particular flight flew out of Dulles and out over the Atlantic in an area away from commercial air traffic.  They don’t want people to see our airplane diving toward the ocean.  The flight moves up and down in a series of parabolas which makes everything inside the airplane alternate between weightlessness and almost twice the force of gravity at Earth’s surface.

The sensation can be disorienting and many people feel ill, so Zero G recommends the use of motion-sickness medication, which I forgot to take.  Still, I was lucky and experienced no discomfort.  I was amazed by how interesting the sensation was.

The tendency is to want to swim, but swimming doesn’t work in air at all and one just looks silly.  Pushing off surfaces or other humans works well.  I expected to lose track of “up” and “down” but I was surprised to see that I also lost track of left and right.  It was a lot of fun and all too short.