from World Daily, C1, March 23, 1999
Translated by Larry W. Teng, University of Texas at Austin

What is the feeling when we stay in zero-gravity to simulate the environment in space?  Donglin Cheung, who just completed a biological experiment high in the sky last Saturday (3/20/1999), said that it feels like floating in water without merging into it. What is the feeling when flying on JSC's zero-gravity airplane? It was like riding a roller coaster for forty minutes.
 
Cheung, whose proposal for an experimental project was approved by NASA, is one of the prospective student designers NASA recruited from all over the US.  He is the only Chinese student.
 
He and his colleagues from the Department of Mechanical Engineering, University of Vermont, drove all the way from Texas back to New York with their Project Drosophila. Inside their car, there was a barrel as big as a real rocket. This rocket-like container is full of Drosophilas (fruit flies) as their instrument for an experiment in the sky. They observed the activity and behavior of Drosophilas when they stay in zero-gravity. Also, they observed the connection between the turbulent motion of male and female Drosophilas and the rate of aging.
 
"Basically, this experiment is almost finished!" Cheung said, "And now, we are going to analyze the data to determine the experimental results."
 
The team’s four members, Donglin Cheung, Megan Carroll, Noel Nutting, and Dan Barnett, began constructing their instrument last semester. In the beginning, their goal was simply to build a rocket model. But, they merged the experiment of observing Drosophilas suggested by the professors and their project was proposed to NASA as one of the experiments for the Reduced Gravity Student Flight Opportunities program.
 
"The reason we chose Drosophilas", Cheung said, "is that the activity pattern of Drosophilas is very similar to humans." For implementing this experiment, they bred 132 Drosophilas and categorized them by gender and age using various transparent boxes. The instrument is equipped with a thermometer and a video camera in order to record the activity of Drosophilas.
 
They were tired when they arrived in New York because they had driven for 30 hours from Texas, but they were still excited about presenting their experimental results to their parents. Cheung showed his parents a video about the experiment at NASA. The other students brought their experiment back to their school right after the dinner.
 
Shunguang Cheung, Donglin's father, asked his son curiously, "How do you feel when you are in zero-gravity?"  Donglin replied, "It is just like swimming in a pool except you don’t get wet and you can breathe as usual."
 
The zero-gravity simulation aircraft flies at 30,000 feet and simulates the zero-gravity environment by diving to low altitude suddenly. The rate of diving is as high as 10,000 feet per minute. During the forty minutes of flying up and down, the aircraft performed the zero-gravity simulation maneuver 42 times.  Although the students passed their training before boarding the aircraft, they still had problems getting used to such intense change of altitude. Therefore, they could not prevent vomiting during the flight mission.
 
Cheung, who will graduate this May, doesn't plan to begin graduate study immediately. Instead, he would like to increase his working experience before he enters graduate school. He will go back to school today (3/24) after his reunion with his family.