'U' students take a ride in zero gravity

By Lindsey Alpert

Daily Staff Reporter

Many students cringe when they think about riding Cedar Point's Magnum or Blue Streak roller coasters, but riding NASA's Vomit Comet didn't turn the stomachs of five aerospace engineering students who are part of the Reduced Gravity Student Flight Opportunities Program.

Engineering juniors Vito Ciaravino, Danielle Renton, Sarah Shull and Jeff Zimmerman and sophomore Dan Berkenstock returned to campus this week after two weeks at the Texas Space Center where they rode in the KC-135 airplane, nicknamed the Vomit Comet.

Pilots fly the plane upwards and then drop to simulate a zero-gravity environment, which lasts for about 25 seconds at a time, so students can perform experiments free from the pull of the earth. The University students were among more than 45 teams accepted this year from about 100 applications submitted by colleges nationwide.

The team's experiment involved a liquid droplet radiator to create heat.

"It's kind of like a shower head," Ciaravino said. "We wanted to create a single stream, which is a more efficient method to radiate heat."

The students, who are all members of the national aerospace honor society Sigma Gamma Tau, formed their team in the fall. They completed their proposal in October and received an acceptance letter just before winter break.

The trip to Texas included a week of physiological testing and tours of NASA, including lectures by Duane Ross, the head of astronaut selection, and Gene Krantz, Apollo 13's flight director. The second week the teams were flown on the "Weightless Wonder V" to perform their experiments.

"Our flight time was two hours," Renton said. "About every two minutes you'd get about 25 seconds of zero gravity and 35 seconds of double gravity."

Team members were given an anti-nausea drug before the flight and were required to carry motion sickness bags.

"They told us to lie on the floor when at 2G because that's when most people get sick," Shull said.

Although none of the University team members got sick, which NASA refers to as "kills," there were six kills on the first flight and only three kills on the second flight.

"On Monday 13 of the 16 people got sick," Renton said.

The team experienced 30 zero-gravity runs - one run with moon gravity, which is about one-sixth of earth's gravity, and one run at Martian gravity, which is about one-third of earth's gravity.

The zero-gravity experience "was absolutely incredible," Renton said. "It's like complete freedom. The closest thing that I can relate it to is swimming, but it's not even that."