There is only one way to experience lunar gravity while still on Earth, or rather a few thousand feet above its surface: on a parabolic flight. In this exclusive mini-documentary, Space.com reporter Tereza Pultarova takes to the sky with a bunch of European scientists and one astronaut to get a taste of being on the moon, but the journey proves more challenging than she expected.
Credit: Space.com | footage courtesy: European Space Agency/Novespace/NASA
A Future Studios Production
Credit: Space.com | footage courtesy: European Space Agency/Novespace/NASA
A Future Studios Production
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TechTranscript
00:00Humans are returning to the Moon.
00:03They haven't been there for more than 50 years.
00:06But how do you prepare for a visit to such a different world, where your body weighs
00:10only one-sixth of its earthly weight, where everything happens in slow motion, and where
00:16equipment carefully tested on our planet can surprise you in many unexpected ways?
00:23It turns out that there is one way to experience the feeling of being on the Moon while still
00:28on Earth, or rather a few thousand feet above its surface.
00:33Hello, I'm Teresa Poultarova and I'm a senior writer at Space.com and today I'm here
00:39at Bordeaux Airport in France.
00:42And behind me is a very interesting aircraft.
00:46It's an Airbus A310.
00:48Since 2015, the French company Novespas has been using this plane to conduct parabolic flights,
00:55that is flights that simulate weightlessness or reduced gravity, such as lunar gravity
01:00or Martian gravity.
01:02And tomorrow I'm going to take part in one such flight.
01:06Parabolic flights are best known for simulating weightlessness.
01:09You must have seen footage of people floating around the aircraft cabin.
01:14Pilots create these brief spells of no gravity by putting the plane into short, carefully calculated
01:21periods of free fall, as they follow a wild up-and-down trajectory of steep climbs and nerve-wracking
01:27dives.
01:28But it turns out that if you fly the parabola just a little differently, you end up feeling
01:33like on the Moon.
01:35Or on Mars.
01:37Apparently, this plane is the largest in the world that can be used for parabolic flights.
01:46The cabin has been stripped of almost all of its internal equipment.
01:50There are only a few seats left and there are almost no lockers on board.
01:54I'm meeting Eric Dele Salle, Novespas chief pilot and captain of my flight.
02:00With nearly 30 years of experience piloting parabolic flights, Dele Salle is one of only
02:05eight European men capable of executing these flights with such accuracy that generates reduced
02:11gravity with scientific precision.
02:16Hello, I'm Teresa from space.com.
02:20Would you mind if I ask you a couple of questions?
02:22I will be on the flight tomorrow and I'm quite nervous about the whole thing.
02:25No, it's absolutely no problem.
02:27It's a great pleasure.
02:28Please have a seat, Teresa.
02:29I'm Eric Dele Salle, I will be the captain for the flight tomorrow.
02:32Wonderful.
02:33So can you tell me a little bit what's going to happen tomorrow?
02:36Where are we going to fly and what are we going to do?
02:39Tomorrow we will fly near the coast, the Atlantic coast, far from Bordeaux.
02:46We will be flying flights that simulate lunar and Martian gravity.
02:52Is that true?
02:53Yes, it will not be a simulation.
02:57It will be a real apparent gravity that we have on the Moon or on Mars.
03:04So what makes a difference between a parabola that gives you the lunar gravity and the Martian
03:09gravity or no gravity at all.
03:12It's just a matter of how much we push on the stick.
03:16If I give you a ball and please throw it in such a way it will stay as long as possible in the air.
03:22So you will throw it up and then from the time you release the ball, it will become to fall even,
03:31if still climbing at the beginning in the sun.
03:34And then we have the zero.
03:37We just push so that the aircraft will pull up first and then when we reach a given altitude,
03:46we push on the stick so that the aircraft will do that as if it was falling down in the vacuum.
03:53That is for the zero.
03:55And for to keep lunar, it will be a little less trump and much even less.
04:03Unlike on your regular flight, there will be four pilots on board,
04:07three of them actively controlling the aircraft at the same time.
04:11One pilot will be in charge of the plane's pitch.
04:14The other will control its roll.
04:17The third will act on the throttle.
04:19After each set of parabolas, one pilot will take a break and will be replaced with a spare.
04:26The difficulty is to be very accurate and that's our objective.
04:31So we share the three axes and the aircraft between the three pilots.
04:37So one is flying the pitch and it is making the zero g or the moon or Mars gravity.
04:45And we use this kind of thing here that we put here like that.
04:53I plug that to have the radio and then so from now on this pilot can only act on the pitch
05:02and I cannot do that with that.
05:06You see this one you can do both pitch and roll and with this one I can only use pitch.
05:13And during that time the other pilot will use a very technical equipment.
05:24These two things here.
05:28And it can act on the roll without pulling or pushing.
05:34So that the two pilots are flying the aircraft at the same time.
05:39And the third pilot is acting on the throttle.
05:43Let's go back in the cabin.
05:45Preparations for tomorrow's flight are in full swing here as well.
05:50Ten scientific teams from all over Europe are installing their equipment.
05:55Making sure it's secured in a way that it won't pose any risk during our wild ride.
06:01Here I'm meeting Neil Melville, the European Space Agency's parabolic flight campaign coordinator,
06:08who will serve as my minder.
06:10Making sure that I, the rookie flyer, won't cause too much chaos during the flight.
06:16We are doing some real science here, some fundamental science, but also some technology tests and
06:22demonstrations because these flights are going to be very special.
06:25They're about lunar gravity and Martian gravity.
06:28So we're testing hardware and systems that we're really going to take to the Moon
06:32to see if we can get them working the way we want in a much kind of cheaper and easier environment
06:37than flying all the way to the Moon with it.
06:39So are there any other ways how we can simulate lunar gravity on Earth apart from being on a plane like this?
06:45It's not easy at all. There are a couple of like drop tower type solutions that can do lunar gravity
06:51on a very very small scale, but only for a couple of seconds and only for hardware.
06:57If you want to get yourself, to get people into lunar gravity, you have two options.
07:02You can either come on this aircraft or you can go to the Moon. That's it.
07:06That was all really interesting. I think I've seen enough today and we will be back tomorrow in the morning.
07:16Good morning. I'm back at Bordeaux airport. It's the 25th of April 2023, 8 in the morning.
07:23And today is actually my 40th birthday and I'm going to celebrate it in style.
07:29Right now I'm waiting to receive my anti-vomiting medication.
07:34Parabolic flights are sometimes called the vomit comet. And I will be honest with you.
07:40Do you remember that kid that used to throw up on every school trip? That was me.
07:46But never mind. This drug that I'm just going to receive cuts the risk of nausea to 1 in 10 people.
07:52So let's hope that it works for me as well.
07:55I also need to change into my flight suit. And now I'm ready to go. We will fly west of Bordeaux,
08:03above the Atlantic Ocean, climbing to the altitude of about 20,000 feet. That's below the cruising altitude
08:10of commercial airliners, but well above the altitude frequented by lighter aircraft. Our pilots will
08:17then perform four sets of seven to eight parabolas, two lunar sets and two Martian sets. In between,
08:24we will have only three five to eight minute breaks. This is partial G. It's a little bit different to
08:31what we normally fly for those that have flown before with us. Please make sure you pay attention
08:36to the safety crew. Make sure that we all stay healthy and safe during the flight. Right. We are ready to go.
08:43Each parabola starts with a climb at a 50 degree angle to the altitude of nearly 30,000 feet. You can
08:50hear the engines roar. The acceleration pins your body into the floor with double the force of Earth's
08:57gravity. It's a peculiar feeling. But it lasts only about 20 seconds.
09:06Injection. Then injection. The engines stop. Silence. Everything slows down. Experienced scientists
09:18don't waste any time. But the rookies like myself can get a little carried away. Welcome to the moon.
09:26It feels magical. This is seriously cool. The 2G is not that cool. I need to lie down.
09:32The plane is descending. Our bodies get pinned down again. The experienced flyers stop in their tracks.
09:42Us rookies seek a more comfortable position on the floor. Then about a minute and a half of steady flight.
09:49Normal gravity. And then it starts again.
09:52I brought with me a lunar gravity indicator. It's a soft toy moon handmade specifically for this occasion
10:01by my colleague Daisy Dobrievic. In lunar gravity it spins and bounces like in slow motion.
10:09Gradually I'm gaining more confidence. Lunar gravity feels good. But what will remain hard for me until the
10:16very end are the 2G phases before and after the reduced gravity. Wow. It's really quite interesting.
10:24The 2G during the pull-up feels a little funny. But yeah. Wow. Amazing.
10:32For now I won't allow that to stop me enjoying this otherworldly experience.
10:36Now it feels as if I only weigh 10 kilos. She's right. 10 kilos. Definitely no more than that.
10:54It's time for our first break. We are receiving a very special visitor. One of our pilots has a break
11:01and has come to see the experiments. He might look a little familiar. These days he is better known
11:08for flying to the International Space Station. One of our pilots today is actually the astronaut
11:14Tomas Pesquet. I'm not kidding. Could you say hi to space.com readers? Sure. Hi everyone. Nice to
11:19fly with you today. So we're on this flight that is simulating lunar gravity. What role will these flights
11:25have in the future Mars moon exploration? Well it's here that we're testing everything. As you can tell
11:30around you there's the technology, there's the engineering, the science, not so much the astronauts
11:36but they'll come at some point to train also to prepare for those flights and get a taste of what
11:40it's going to be like to walk on the moon. That's the only place on earth that you can test with people
11:45around their experiments and experience what it feels like to walk on the moon. So that's where it starts
11:51and it's all going to happen up there. And while I'm trying to survive the uncomfortable 2G phase on
11:57the padded floor again, Tomas Pesquet has a go piloting a device that might one day help astronauts
12:04transport equipment on the moon's surface. For me things are soon going to get a little difficult.
12:11We're more than halfway through. We have finished all our lunar parabolas and also one set of the
12:17Martian parabolas and we still have one Martian set to go. I find the 2G during the pull-up particularly
12:27challenging but so far so good. I didn't have to use my back yet so it's all good. Despite the strong
12:35medicine that I had received before the flight, I lived up to my childhood reputation and once again
12:41was the sickest kid on the trip. But in the meantime all science teams completed their tasks with
12:47much difficulty. When the final parabola finally arrived I was relieved. 1G felt good. It was a
12:55two-hour roller coaster and certainly the most intense thing I have done in my whole life. It would
13:01take me a while to process the experience.
13:17So now I know what it feels like to walk on the moon and Mars. I will certainly remember this experience
13:24for the rest of my life. But right now I'm quite happy to have my feedback on the ground of our very
13:30special planet Earth. Thank you for watching.