New York Times reporter John Schwartz took a flight on NASA's zero-gravity "vomit comet" earlier this year, and wrote a terrific first-person piece about his experience. You have to pay $2.95 to read it at nytimes.com, but I found a helpful site in Turkey that coughs up the complete text gratis. Yay for Turkish websites!
For the first few parabolas, I did as the flight surgeon, Dr. James Locke, told me. Lie back in my seat with the seat belt unbuckled, holding the ends. When the plane rounded the top of the first curve, I felt a momentary dropping in the pit of my stomach and then gravity simply went away. I floated up from the seat. Thirty seconds later, my body pressed down against the seat once again, but with twice the normal weight as we slammed upward.After growing used to the sensations through a few cycles, I pushed out of the seat and floated toward the ceiling, grabbing the canvas straps along the wall to move around. Dr. Locke told me that I was bouncing around a little too tentatively.
"Try the Superman move!" he said, stretching out his arms in an imitation of comic-book flight. I did, and gave a gentle kick against the wall and sailed to the other wall, slower than a speeding bullet, but nonetheless fulfilling childhood desires I had forgotten I had.
Link to John Schwartz: "Mild-Mannered Reporter Gets a Superman Moment." Link to full-size image from this gallery of space-themed children's publications from 1961-1974.
T minus 72 hours to liftoff. Previous posts: Link to part 2, and Link to part 1. Speaking of Turkey, Bruce Sterling says: Link.
