A reduced-gravity aircraft is a type of fixed-wing aircraft that provides brief near-weightless environments for training astronauts, conducting research and making gravity-free movie shots.
Currently, NASA uses a modified C-9 plane to create simulations of a weightless environment, both for training purposes and to conduct weightlessness experiments (without the enormous costs of space travel). Until recently, only a select few had the privilege of experiencing these flights. Today, a company called Zero Gravity Corporation (ZERO-G) offers this experience to the general public.
Gizmodo’s Space Camp is all about the under-explored side of NASA, from robotics to medicine to deep-space telescopes to art. We’re coming at you direct from NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas, shedding a light on this amazing world. You can follow the whole series here.
NASA’s Reduced Gravity Office has been an institution at the Johnson Space Center since 1959. It was used to support the Mercury missions, then Gemini, then Apollo, all the way through Skylab, the Shuttle program, and today’s International Space Station initiatives.
During that time, the custom planes have made more than 100,000 microgravity dives to support the training and testing associated with these missions. A microgravity dive is a parabolic arc wherein the plane dives at the same speed at which you fall—so within the plane’s enclosed cabin, it looks and feels like you’re just floating. NASA calls their plane the Weightless Wonder.
The exteriors of these planes don’t need to modified in any meaningful way. The stresses imparted onto the airframe during the dives and rapid climbs are all well within their designed tolerances. The real special sauce is on the inside. There are only about 20 seats, all of which are at the rear of the plane.
From there to the cockpit, it’s all laboratory. Every surface of the lab—the floor, walls, and ceiling—are padded with what seem to be white gym mats. This greatly improves safety, because you are absolutely going to hit your head (and everything else) until you figure out what you’re doing. Under the mats are intricate systems that allow you to bolt various items (palates full of lab experiments, for example) to the floor, so they won’t float away.
The windows are all shuttered during flight, because the illusion of placidly floating is most definitely ruined if you can see that in actuality, you’re falling out of the sky, and quickly. In lieu of windows, the cabin is outfitted with photographic lighting throughout, which provides a nice, even light.