Free Falling!

Mrs. Fortuna and Heidi after the zero gravity flight. Wow! What an experience that cannot be accurately described. This picture was taken at about 11:15 am as we were leaving the plane after our two hour flight. We were able to collect some very interesting data that we can't wait for you to be able to analyze.


The Zero G (Weightless Wonder) is on its way to do 30 parabolas producing about 22 seconds of microgravity each. We also were able to do one lunar (one-sixth of earth's gravity), and one martian (one-third of earth's gravity) parabolas. During the 1.8 G portion of the flight we were to be seated or lying down. The force on the body was extreme. No data collected here.

Heidi and Mrs. Fortuna were amazed at how difficult it was to actually launch our projectiles while floating around in a zero G environment. The 22 seconds went very quickly and we were able to only launch one, at most, during each parabola. The feeling of being weightless was unbelievable! It doesn't get much better than this.

One thing that surprised us was when the plane was leaving the force of 1.8 G how quickly we were floating uncontrollably about the cabin. It was difficult not to bump into people and experiments. You could not tell which way was up or down, or where your feet should be. There was much screaming during the first zero G as none of us were expecting what we got. It reminded me of swimming without water.

Mrs. Fortuna, being rather short, and not able to hold onto the ceiling for support, found that using a floor strap around her foot helped her to remain in a "heads up" position so she could work on the experiment.

Here we are loading the plane at about 9:15 am. Five of the ten experiments were loaded today, as well as some NASA human test subject experiments. There were many video/camera people on board and our cameras took some great footage. You will love to see this amazing video once we are back in the " warm" and "sunny" Wisconsin climate.

Mr. Ahlberg, Mrs. Lesneski, and Mrs. Osterhues will have much work to do tomorrow on their flight. We hope they will collect data in both the lunar and martian parabolas. We also think that they may be able to launch at least one projectile during the 1.8 G portion of the flight. Only minor modifications were made today after our flight. They will have a fantastic time on their zero G flight on Wednesday!