Kyle's Reaction

I sit here writing these words on the plane ride from Houston, back to Colorado.  As we take off, I can’t help but smirk, thinking about the last time I was on a plane. I feel the increased g’s as we climb through the sky, awaiting the quick transition to zero-g, but it doesn’t come. I smirk again, realizing that no plane ride will ever be quite like my experience aboard the “Weightless Wonder.”

I will preface my story by saying that the “Vomit Comet” did indeed get the best of me. Despite my best efforts, my breakfast was intent on leaving my stomach. Thankfully, that waited until after the final parabola.

The morning of our flight, we were given a combination of medications specially designed to help with motion sickness and give us the energy necessary for the flight. Upon take off, most everyone’s nerves were at ease, most likely thanks to the medication. After reaching 10,000 feet, we were free to tend to our experiments and prepare them for the journey into the reduced gravity environment.

We started with three Martian parabolas which gave us about 1/3 of earth’s gravity. As our first introduction to reduced gravity, it was quite strange. I could feel the existence of gravity, but I also felt more capable - I felt that I had instantly gained abilities that were new to me. I turned to our computer to look at our data, but I couldn’t help bouncing up and down slightly to experience this strange environment as best I could (even with the quick 40 second intervals).

Three lunar parabolas came next. For me, the difference between lunar and Martian parabolas was  hard to identify, probably because both environments were equally new to me. Again, I couldn't help bouncing in place, with images of the moon going by in my mind.

Next up was zero gravity, with a total of 28 parabolas remaining. I took the first few parabolas easy, opting to stay on the ground and just get used to the environment. The 1.8 g’s acting on my body felt more intense during this fist zero-g parabola. I patiently awaited the transition, not knowing what to expect. I hear the plane’s engines cut back, feel the g’s quickly disappearing, and in about three seconds, I’m accidentally floating.

Since I wanted to stay on the ground, my first instinct was to hold on tight to the strap on the ground. Once the zero gravity hit, the force with which I was holding the strap caused me to start rolling on my side. I felt very out of control, feeling like I was falling, but I didn’t know where. I sneaked a peak down the plane, and saw a very strange sight. To me, I felt like I was looking down, with people floating below me. I looked up, and it felt down. I looked down, and it felt down. It’s one thing to say, “There is no up in space,” but it really is something else to truly know what that phrase means (sort of…).

The next few parabolas hit and I began to understand how to control myself better. Unfortunately this increase in control was beginning to feel more necessary than ever – my head was feeling quite strange. I had a feeling I knew what was coming, so I identified the location of my government-issued sickness bags. I started sweating, frustrated with myself for not taking off my flight suit down to my waist. I was sweating, feeling a little queasy, and floating at the same time. During one of the hypergravity sections of the flight, I decided it was time and grabbed my sickness bag. Within seconds, I had hands on me, asking me if I was alright. The flight surgeon on our flight came over to me, asking how I was feeling. I sat up straight for a few parabolas, missing the zero-g experience while they pinned me down to the plane’s “floor.” A few people helped me take off my flight suit down to the waist to help cool me down.

I decided to sit out a few more parabolas and sit in the seats in the back. I was handed a cold towel and a bottle of water, which seemed to help immediately. The flight surgeon helped by fanning me with air, and gave me a lifesaver mint. It all helped.

As I started feeling better, the environment around me started to come back into focus. Sitting in the front row of the seats, I had a complete view of the entire plane. It felt surreal looking down the plane, seeing flips (some on purpose, but most on accident), and watching the ground transition from below me, to who-knows-where.

By the time we had a break in the parabolas, I decided I was feeling well enough to rejoin my team. I took the first few parabolas slow, only rising slightly from my seated position against the plane's wall. I was feeling confident in my ability to not lose my breakfast, but I was aware of the fact that my head did not think that the environment was normal.

Eventually, I was able to check on our experiment, help adjusted a moved-camera, and check on the data. For the last few parabolas, I brought out the slinky, handing Sara the other end. Nathan filmed us as we held the slinky between us, seeing the straight line it was forming across our structure (an odd sight to see).

I pulled out a clear bottle full of about thirty jelly beans on the last parabola, playing with their movement in the microgravity environment.

Thirty-four parabolas sounds like a lot, but they went by extremely fast. We leveled out, stored items that needed to be stored, and returned to our seats. Upon sitting, my held still did not feel right. I, again, identified my sickness bag and brought it out. There went my breakfast.

About thirty seconds later, I felt normal, as if the sickness was never there, thankful for the opportunity to experience both the “Weightless Wonder” as well as the “Vomit Comet” that day.

Do I wish I hadn’t been sick? Sure – but the times in between were seconds of my life that I will not forget. As the plane I am currently sitting on prepares to land, I cannot help but imagine it without the rows of seats ahead of me, white padding on the walls, and a few dozen people “below” me floating throughout the cabin.

(Images courtesy of NASA)

Posted by Kyle Stephens

Day 5: A Fake Update

Kyle, Sara, and Nathan flew today. It was pretty remarkable. We did not have the time to write the complete update that this day deserves, so please wait a few days until we find the time.

Tomorrow is our last day in Houston, with a tour of JSC being the only event on our schedule.

Posted by Kyle Stephens

Day 4: Flight Day #1

Today, July 12, 2011, was the day the first four members of our team had their first (and for CJ, sixth) experience of microgravity.  But before the flight was able to happen, many preparatory things had to occur.  When we arrived at Ellington Field, we first had a short morning meeting followed by a briefing from our flight surgeon who would later distribute our anti-motion sickness medication.  There was some anxiety among the group when some lost tools caused a short delay, but both tools were shortly found and we continued on as scheduled.  After receiving our medications, today’s fliers boarded the plane in a single file line with cameras flashing all the way.  

We took our seats in the back of the plane and as with every commercial flight, we were lectured on the “safety features of this aircraft” including oxygen, life vests, and the over-wing emergency exit doors (we were even asked to turn off our cell phones!).  From take off to ten thousand feet, all was as a normal commercial airline flight but then the 10 minute countdown began.

That is ten minutes to the beginning of the first parabola.  All the teams went to their respective experiments and began making the final preparations before the big moment.  Kevin started up the computer and data collection while Sean and CJ attached two cameras to the payload.  Down to four minutes now.  Our team was ready to go and all took the ideal position on the floor that best reduced the possibility of motion sickness.  Only one minute to go.  All the pickles (a nickname for the participants because of the dark green flight suits we wear) were lying down on the floor holding on to straps and handles in preparation.  Thirty seconds left, the engines rev, and the pilots start the first upward turn.  Hypergravity, 1.8g’s, and the feeling of almost double one’s body weight bore down on our team members. Seconds left, the weight eases, the engines slow, and poof.

Tory, Sean, Kevin, and CJ all floated from the floor as the term “weight” became meaningless.  Nervous giggles were had by all as our minds and bodies tried to make sense of the new environment, but by the second parabola, excited talk and laughter was heard throughout the cabin.  Everyone was so enthralled with the feeling of weightlessness, we almost forgot about our experiment!  On our first turn, the astronaut candidate on the flight asked about our setup and found it very intriguing.  Parabola 22 marked the time we could start our outreach experiments (a.k.a. gyroscopes, floating green paratrooper men, and spinning patches).  During parabolas 29-31, we experienced Lunar gravity (1/6 that of Earth) and Martian (Mars) gravity (1/3 Earth’s) on parabolas 32-34.  When the pilots pulled out of parabola 34 applause was heard throughout the plane as we all cheered the success our first microgravity flight.

Upon reviewing the data collected, we found results that were not exactly as predicted. The liquid lens did not form the ideal “perfect” shape we expected, but we believe we have found the problem and hope tomorrow’s group will see the results as predicted. Despite his best efforts and the effects of the medications, Kevin unfortunately succumbed to motion sickness, but all four of us returned to terra-firma as veterans of microgravity.

Articles on both Arizona teams were published today in the Arizona Daily Star as well as University of Arizona News.  Links to the articles are below.

AZ Daily Star (We made the front page!)
UA News

Posted by Sean Gellenbeck

Day 3: Test Readiness Review/ Unexpected Excitement

Today was an interesting day. We awoke early in the morning, and left on time to make our 7:45 am meeting. It was decided that Nathan and Sean would take the payload a little after the first car left to minimize the time our structure was in the hot car (yes, it's hot at 8:00 am in Houston). Unfortunately, Nathan's car did not wish to cooperate and failed to start. After some frantic searches for jumper cables at the Ellington Field hangar, Sara and Tory ventured back to the hotel. 

Upon arriving at the hotel, the group was able to jump start Nathan's car (hooray!). Nathan and Sean were able to get to the hanger, only an hour late - about 90 minutes before our Technology Readiness Review. Fortunately, little work was needed on our structure. 

Sara and Tory, after rescuing Nathan and Sean, decided to visit Starbucks for some celebratory caffeine. After experiencing some drive-thru mishaps (missing the ordering location), the car was switched into reverse to fix this problem. Unfortunately, another vehicle occupied the space immediately behind their vehicle, resulting in an ever-so-slight "love tap." No one was injured, but both cars did receive some minor cosmetic damage. A few phone calls were made, and all was well.

Eventually, our team ended our terrible morning and began finishing up our structure. The main task left was to cover the sides and corners with foam and tape down wires.

 

The Technology Readiness Review panel consisted of about 20 individuals from NASA's Johnson Space Center. We gave a brief presentation to the panel, discussing our experiment's intent and potential hazards. There were few questions and concerns, so we took that as a good sign. Some other teams were not so lucky, requiring some rather extensive modifications to make their experiment safe to fly. 

Pictured below is our complete flight team (minus our journalist). Our NASA mentor, Cj Johnson, is pictured down in front and will be flying with us.

After that, we were able to load our structure onto the plane. We were the first group onto the plane, so we had the opportunity to see the plane before it was full.

After bolting our structure to the plane, we were able to perform a final component check and hang up a sign with our experiment name. Despite our morning vehicle-related issues, we still expect our experiment to perform well in the zero gravity environment and are happy with our structure. Below is our structure as we left it on the plane.

We ended the day getting our flight suits and learning more about how to prevent motion sickness on the plane. We are hoping motion sickness will not be an issue - or, it will at least be an issue that resolves itself very quickly. Stay turned tomorrow for flight reactions from our flight team.

Tomorrow morning, Kevin, Sean, Cj (NASA mentor), and Tory (journalist) will fly the experiment. Kyle, Sara, and Nathan will fly on Wednesday. Our five-student team is pictured below after a nice unofficial photoshoot today.

Make sure to check the Arizona Daily Star as well as UANews tomorrow (Tuesday) for articles on our team!

Weekend Work/ Adventures

This weekend was very productive for the team. Saturday was spent trying to finalize everything for next week. Several logos were printed and attached to our structure, representing UASEDS, Arizona Space Grant, the University of Arizona, and our mission patch.

A large poster will be taped to the side of the plane's interior near our structure with our experiment title and a NASA Reduced Gravity logo as well.

We spent some time modifying the software to make the experiment's start-up procedure as easy as possible. If all goes according to plan, our experiment should be fairly automatic, with us monitoring the systems in place during the flight. Two liquid lenses were also created Saturday with much success. Only one will be used for the flight, so we have one as a spare. One liquid lens is pictured below.

With the SCOTS test setup on our structure, we were able to take data of our liquid lens on the ground, which can be seen below.

It is clear that the fringes are thicker on the bottom portion of our lens which is related to the influence of gravity on the liquid-liquid interface. We are expecting the lens to produce a much better and symmetric image while in microgravity.

Saturday's dinner was spent outside, grilling hot dogs and hamburgers with the others teams at our hotel, including the University of Florida, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and the other University of Arizona team.  

On Sunday, we had time to explore the surrounding area, visiting Space Center Houston in the morning. We were able to drive some Martian rovers, design rockets, tour Space Shuttle Adventure (note: not a spacefaring craft), rock climb on Mars, play human foosball, design a mission to Mars, shoot some air guns, and drink Starbucks all in one place. Good times were had by all.

After Space Center Houston, we decided to drive to the beach in Galveston, TX. The ocean waves helped in our parabola training - our first flight is on Tuesday!

The Test Readiness Review is tomorrow morning, but everything seems to be ready, so we are in good shape. Stay tuned for frantic future updates after everything goes wrong.

Posted by Kyle Stephens

Day 2: Physiological Training/ Work Day

Friday started off with Physiological Training promptly at 8 am in a briefing room away from the main work hangar. The training covered everything from hypoxia to motion sickness and everything else we could possibly experience over the course of our flight. We were given instructions on how to prepare for the flight physically as well what to do during and after the flight. More information on this subject will come later when they brief us on the best way to avoid sickness on the plane before our flight. A demonstration was also given using a spinning chair and selected volunteers to test out how disoriented you can be without visual and sound cues.

Once the training was over, we remained in the briefing room to view the launch of STS-135 on a large projector featuring Space Shuttle Atlantis. The room was energetic and hopeful that the shuttle would launch even with uncertain weather conditions. Despite a delay at T-00:00:31, Space Shuttle Atlantis finally launched as an entire room of college students sat in awe. Once the shuttle reached orbit, everyone cheered and clapped in celebration of the final voyage of the 30 year old shuttle program.

It was back to work after the exciting morning and we all drove back to the hangar. Today, work included testing of electronics software well as mounting electronics hardware to our structure. Our SCOTS MATLAB code was also modified to analyze our data faster for possible in-flight analysis. In the picture below, you can see all of the teams hard at work.

In the afternoon, a few of us attended a media/press meeting which gave information about how to speak to the press, how our flight would be documented by NASA, and how we should plan to document our own experience. We learned that each flight will have two NASA photographers as well as two videographers, so documentation will be ample. We ended the day with a newcomer’s Q & A session to answer any questions about the process.

Our weekend plans are still a bit up in the air, but over the course of the weekend we will be putting finishing touches on our payload, organizing outreach items to take up with us in the zero-g flight, and taking a possible beach trip to the Galveston area. Our goal is to have a completed payload, ready for our Test Readiness Review on Monday morning. The hope for tonight is to interact with other teams, and spend some time learning about all the exciting projects and interesting groups of people.

Posted by Sara Meschberger

Day 1: Orientation

On Wednesday, everyone from our team arrived in Houston, TX for our microgravity flight week. We spent most of that evening making a plan for the week and figuring out everything that still needed to get done. That night, we were all able to sleep for 10-12 hours which was a nice change of pace from our normal routine.

Thursday was the official start of our flight week. After arriving at Ellington Field, we were able to get badged and find our workstation for the week. A total of 14 teams are participating in our flight week, including an additional team from the U of A. We were briefed on major safety concerns and introduced to the individuals from the Reduced Gravity Office as well as the Aircraft Operations Division at Johnson Space Center. The group then split up. Most of our team started performing some final work on our structure while Kyle attended a more thorough orientation session.

At the orientation, Kyle learned many details. Fun facts: each minute our plane is in the air costs $638, bobby pins can kill us all, and the 9-g load requirement is for a crash scenario. We also learned that each of our flights will consist of 34 parabolas, with 28 zero-g, 3 lunar (1/6-g), and 3 martian (1/3-g). This flight profile consists of more lunar and martian parabolas than normal, but several projects requested them, so the modification was made with all teams' approval.

That evening, most of the teams had dinner at Gatti's Pizza - a very formal pizza parlor + arcade (think Chuck E. Cheese's). At the dinner, we were able to meet individuals from many of the other teams - we even found some SEDS Michigan members! It will be great to have the opportunity to learn more about everyone's experiment and network with the other teams here.

Tomorrow will be spent working more on our structure and attending the Physiological Training (a mandatory training for flight). Our weekend plans are still "to be determined," but we are hoping to explore Houston and the surrounding area. We are expecting a few articles about this experience to be written for the Arizona Daily Star and UANews, so make sure to watch those new outlets for those articles!

Posted by Kyle Stephens

Progress Update

Much activity has happened in the past two months, so I will try to give an overview on our progress. After finals ended in May, our team had about two weeks before we needed to submit our TEDP (Technical Experiment Data Package). This document basically describes our experiment and structure in detail, proving that it will be safe to fly and able to withstand the expected loads. Considering we did not have a structure at this point, we had a lot to do in those two weeks.

We decided to make our structure out of 1" Aluminum tubing. Since the material arrived in 10 ft increments, we needed to cut everything down to size ourselves.

After a few hours of work and several dozen cuts later, we finally had our pieces made and ready for assembly. After thinking about using various brackets to assemble the structure, we decided that the easiest assembly process was to have our structure welded. Luckily, we were able to find someone who was able to weld our structure together within a few days.

 Assembly of side panels, end panels, and the optical rail assembly was next. We decided to place rubber dampening mounts between our structure and the plane as well as our structure and the optical rail. We were concerned that the plane vibrations would disrupt the liquid lens performance, so we are hoping this measure is able to prevent that problem from occurring. Our near-complete structure and the optical rail setup is pictured below.

After a few days of work, we were pretty happy with our progress.  The TEDP was due on May 25th, so much of our work was spent writing the required information for that document.

We were not sure of the best way to verify the strength of our welds (a total of 24 joints). For the TEDP, our structure is required to withstand the follow load conditions: a 9-g load forward, a 6-g load down, a 3-g load backward, a 2-g load up, and a 2-g load on the side. We are able to prove the strength of our structure using a mathematical analysis or by performing actual load tests. Unfortunately, we were not able to complete load tests to make the May 25th deadline, so we opted to use Solidworks to model our structure and verify its performance that way. Although this method is able to theoretically prove the strength of our structure, we understood that further load tests would likely need to be performed to test our welds.

We submitted our TEDP on the May 25th deadline, with the expectation that a little more work was required. In mid-July, we were able to perform the load tests that were missing in our initial TEDP submission. Pictured below is our structure holding up against an equivalent 9-g load in the forward direction. The three red straps simulate the mounting configuration we will use in the plane.

 

Tests were performed in the other axes as well, and our structure held up well. These tests greatly simplified the analysis process for our TEDP and clearly prove that our structure is safe to fly.

During the 4th of July weekend, a few members of the team finished up the structure/ experiment assembly and organized all materials needed for the journey to Houston. Two members of our team, Nathan and Sara, are currently driving to Houston with our structure on-board. Kyle, Kevin, and Sean will each by flying to Houston from their respective locations tomorrow (Wednesday)

Our flight week begins on Thursday, July 7th. We expect to fly our experiment on July 12th and July 13th. Keep watching our website for updates during our time in Houston! We'll be there tomorrow!

Posted by Kyle Stephens