Sunday, October 16, 2005

For some things there are no words

Yet, I still look for them.

Last Friday, I floated. There's no other way to describe it. I floated in apparent weightlessness. Perhaps a little background is appropriate. Part of my training as a Flight Controller for NASA, particularly in medical operations, is to understand the conditions in which astronauts will be performing our activities. This is accomplished in an incredible way.

Everybody knows centripetal force. It's the force pulling an object toward the center of a circular path as the object goes around the circle. For instance, everytime you take a long curve while driving and your body feels like it's being pulled away from the turn, that's centripetal force. Now, imagine making that turn, but in a vertical plane. This is achieved by flying a plane in large, parabolic flight paths. At the crest of the parabola the occupants experience a period of weightlessness since the force of gravity is being counterbalanced by the centripetal force. NASA has been conducting this type of training for 30 years now and although the airplane used has changed a couple of times, the nickname for it has not. This vessel is affectionately called the Vomit Comet. The origin of this name should be self-explanatory.

After about ten months of being scheduled to fly and then being pulled due to mechanical issues, I finally got my opportunity on Friday. This was, hands down, the most incredible thing I've done in my life. All I can do is give you the physics of this experience, which I've done, because I don't truly know how to describe it otherwise. You know that feeling you get in an elevator during that brief time it takes for the cabin to deccelerate it's upward movement and come to a stop? For that almost instantaneous moment your body is still moving in the upward direction while the cabin is stopping you can feel, however slight, all weight being removed from your body. Imagine that lasting twentyfive seconds. Imagine being able to stand on your hands with absolutely no effort. Imagine watching your friends float past you with the littlest of effort.

My words do it no justice. Nothing will other than my memories of the parabolic-induced increased gravity followed by the sudden feeling of blood pooling in my head and floating off the ground. That's all it is. Floating. Pushing off the cabin floor and only stopping when my body was impeded by the ceiling. These periods of weightlessness only lasted about 25 seconds, but they were repeated 40 times. Still, not enough time to truly get used to the feeling but just enough to get addicted.
No, there really are no words that accurately describe this experience. There never will be. But I will always remember the day I got to pretend I was in space and float like an astronaut. For that, no words are necessary.

5 Comments:

Blogger Lee said...

How cool are you?! Very awesome!!

Sun Oct 16, 10:52:00 PM  
Blogger Dan said...

Dude, you should totally send that picture to National Headquarters for inclusion in a newsletter or something!

Tue Oct 18, 08:05:00 AM  
Blogger Drew V. said...

Rubinator,

I forwarded your entry (and your floating pic) to the AH chapter listserv and several of them were amazed at your experience -- the alumni co-chairs brought it up at the meeting tonight and passed the pic around! They thought it was really cool to see some of the amazing stuff that our alumni do.

And yes, I am equally amazed. You lucky bastard.

Sun Oct 23, 11:58:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

So you had no choice but to rip open your shirt and show the PSP letters! How about UDME? Or a 'stros t-shirt?

Pretty cool stuff dude.
-GCG

Mon Oct 24, 10:41:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

So that's what the astronauts wear under those suits!

JS from Macungie, (well, Emmaus now).

Thu Oct 27, 11:30:00 AM  

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