Reduced-gravity aircraft

It lasts through the rest of the ascent, and into the descent phase, until the aircraft must pull up, usually when it reaches a downward pitch angle of around 30 degrees.

In about two thirds of the passengers, these flights produce nausea due to airsickness,[10][11] giving the plane its nickname "vomit comet".

[12] The small plane is normally not used for people to float freely and experience weightlessness; however, comedian Rick Mercer did so for a segment of his show.

[14] On June 19, 2008, this plane carried a seven-year-old boy, setting the Guinness world record for the youngest person to fly in microgravity.

[15] Since 1984, ESA and the CNES have flown reduced-gravity missions in a variety of aircraft, including NASA's KC-135, a Caravelle, an Ilyushin Il-76MDK, and an Airbus A300 known as the Zero-G.

63-7998) was also used by Universal Pictures and Imagine Entertainment for filming scenes involving weightlessness in the movie Apollo 13; it made its final flight on October 29, 2004, and is permanently stored in the Pima Air & Space Museum in Tucson, Arizona.

In 2005 NASA replaced these aircraft with a McDonnell Douglas C-9B Skytrain II (N932NA) formerly owned by KLM Royal Dutch Airlines and the United States Navy.

[24] NASA concluded the Reduced Gravity Research Program and ended operations in July 2014, due to aircraft technical problems.

As of 2015[update] NASA had a microgravity services contract with Zero Gravity Corporation (ZERO-G) and used its aircraft, G-FORCE ONE, a modified Boeing 727-200.

[25] In late 2004, the Zero Gravity Corporation became the first company in the United States to offer zero-g flights to the general public, using Boeing 727 jets.

[27] ISS has flown annual microgravity research campaigns to evaluate space suits and other technologies with Project PoSSUM.

In 2016, rock group OK Go recorded a music video for their single "Upside Down & Inside Out" on a reduced-gravity aircraft, which involved acrobatic choreography created specifically for the zero-gravity environment.