May 23, 2000. Copyright 2000. Graphic News. All rights reserved.

SCIENTISTS WANTED, STRONG STOMACHS A MUST

LONDON, May 23, Graphic News: SCIENTISTS will have the unenviable opportunity of testing their stamina during the next four days aboard a European Space Agency Òvomit-comet.Ó
Officially called the ESA ÒZero-gÓ aircraft, an Airbus A-300 with a specially padded cabin will take scientists from France, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium and the U.S. up to 26,250 feet (8,500 metres) above the Gulf of Gascogne and simply fall out of the sky, travelling along a huge parabola like a roller coaster. During the dive the passengers experience the near weightlessness of space -- that ESA prefers to call microgravity -- for about 20 seconds at a time.
Parabolic flights are practically the only means on Earth of reproducing weightlessness, so enabling ESA scientists to test twelve microgravity experiments and support equipment which will eventually fly on the International Space Station.
During the flight the Aibus pilot performs a nose-up manoeuvre to put the aircraft into a steep climb before reducing engine thrust to almost zero. The aircraft continues to climb until it reaches the apex of a parabola before starting its descent.
While flying in the parabola, passengers and objects in the cabin float due to the free-fall of the aircraft. When the angle of descent reaches 45 degrees the pilot accelerates and pulls the aircraft into steady horizontal flight. These manoeuvres are repeated 30 times per flight.
During the filming of Apollo 13 actors Tom Hanks, Bill Paxton and Kevin Bacon enjoyed a sense of weightlessness by spending three days  being filmed in an Apollo command module mock-up while flying giant parabolic arcs aboard NASAÕs KC-135 at Houston's Johnson Space Center. 
The ESA Zero-g project has already flown 27 flights, producing 2,650 parabolas and almost 15 hours of weightlessness -- the equivalent of flying around the Earth in low orbit nearly 10 times. Luckily only about one in three people get really sick, but it is perhaps best to avoid a classic French dejeuner before the flight!
/ENDS