Bucket List / Experience Goals
Experience Weightlessness
Still to do
Float, flip and catch drifting water droplets in mid-air on a plane that dives through the sky like a rollercoaster.
The adventure
The aircraft looks ordinary from the outside, but inside the seats have been ripped out and the cabin is lined with padding. Once you're at altitude, everyone lies on the floor. The pilots pull the nose up steeply and you're pressed down at nearly twice your normal weight. Then they push over the top of the arc, and suddenly you're rising off the floor.
For about twenty seconds you float freely, exactly as astronauts do. You can push off with a fingertip and glide the length of the cabin, spin slowly upside down, or chase a blob of water as it wobbles through the air. Then a call of "feet down" and gravity returns. The manoeuvre is repeated over and over, often with stages simulating the gravity of Mars and the Moon, and by the end you've spent several minutes weightless in total.
Why it’s epic
- Around 15 parabolas per flight, each giving roughly 20 to 30 seconds of weightlessness.
- Simulated Martian (about one third of Earth's gravity) and lunar (about one sixth) gravity phases.
- The same training technique NASA and the European Space Agency use for astronauts.
- Flights open to the public include Zero-G in the US and Air Zero G from Bordeaux in France.
What it is
Parabolic flights create brief periods of weightlessness.
How to do it
Companies such as Zero-G offer flights.
Top tip
Take motion sickness tablets.
Need to know
- You'll need a medical questionnaire, and anyone with certain heart conditions may need a doctor's approval.
- Motion sickness is common, so take medication beforehand if offered.
- Flights run on a limited number of dates each year and sell out, so book well ahead.
Make it happen
Why it’s on my list
Weightlessness occurs when a body in a gravitational field changes places to neutralise its gravitational force.
Astronauts orbiting the Earth in a space station experience zero gravity or weightlessness because their spacecraft continuously undergoes changes in velocity in its orbit in order to prevent it from being pulled into the atmosphere.
This acceleration, which is often known as a centrifugal force, counterbalances gravity. Hence, they experience Zero Gravity or weightlessness.
This floating around in space looks like such an incredible thing to experience it had to be added to my bucket list!
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