In several flights that began in June, nearly 250 science teachers experienced weightlessness on Zero Gravity Corp.'s modified Boeing 727, which is usually aimed at private tourists willing to pay $3,750 a head for the experience. Their trips, complete with a boarding pass and Transportation Security Administration screenings, were paid for by aerospace company Northrop Grumman to encourage the teaching of science.
On Hickey's two-hour, six-minute flight, out of Washington Dulles International Airport on an early autumn morning, the teachers felt Martian gravity (one-third of Earth's) once, lunar gravity (one-sixth of Earth's) four times, and zero gravity 11 times. Each of those gravity breaks produced bursts of laughter and applause, teachers bouncing off the plane's walls and ceilings.
"It was amazing, that was so amazing," said Tracy Cindric, a high school science teacher from Gahanna, Ohio. Her flight experiment partner, Hickey, called the experience "an out-of-body thing."
And that sensation is what people are looking for.
So far, about 3,000 zero-gravity tourists have paid to fly with Zero Gravity Corp., said chief executive officer Peter Diamandis. He hopes to eventually fly 10,000 people a year.
The up-and-down ride can turn the stomachs of a few fliers, but flight planners go to great lengths to minimize motion sickness, said Zero Gravity's chief marketing officer and preflight briefer Noah McMahon. He said maybe three of the last 400 fliers threw up, but on Hickey's flight, only one person did.
