| Parabolic Flight Aboard NASA's "Weightless Wonder" | |
| We recently had the unique opportunity
to run a set of our experiments on board NASA's KC-135 "Weightless Wonder"
aircraft (run by the NASA
Reduced Gravity Program). The plane flies a parabolic arc, which results
in alternating periods of zero gravity and approximately double earth-gravity.
Before flying, we had taken a modified FAA physical examination, and a
course in basic physiology related to aircraft flight which involved the
experience of hypoxia in an Air Force altitude chamber.
Our experiments are funded by the National Space Biomedical Research Institute (NSBRI home page) as part of their neurovestibular research program (Neurovestibular Team Page). (I am the leader of one of the three projects in this area, which involves five other investigators and three other institutions.) This particular experiment tries to determine if humans can adapt their sensorimotor processing so that they make eye movements that fall short of a visual target (decreased gain) in weightlessness, and eye movements that overshoot a visual target (increased gain) in 2g, such that in the later stages of flight the gravity level itself determines which of the two adaptive strategies (low gain or high gain) is used. This work has implications for the training of astronauts for long-duration space flight, where they may make transitions between different gravity environments. Stay tuned for the results. My fellow flyers Dale Roberts, Faisal Karmali, and Stefano Ramat have assembled a page with some of the more fun aspects of our adventure (KC photos page). |
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| Check this space in the future for more infornation, photographs, videos, etc., from our flights. Check the Student Research page for information on how students might be able to participate in this program. | |
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