By Scott Sutherland
Contributing writer
The University of Vermont Record, April 2 to 15, 1999

Three UVM students, accompanied by a couple hundred fruit flies, experienced weightlessness in the name of science March 20 aboard a NASA reduced gravity training aircraft.

Noel Nutting of Essex Junction, Dan Barnett of Asbury, N.J., and Dan Cheung of Roslyn Heights, N.Y., were participants in NASA's 1999 Reduced Gravity Student Flight Opportunities Program, a two week program that invited teams of undergraduates from colleges around the country to conduct scientific experiments in an environment of zero-gravity, otherwise known as weightlessness, in Houston.
 

The UVM students, all mechanical engineering seniors, were accompanied by Megan Carroll of Vineyard Haven, Mass., also a mechanical engineering senior, as well as Mark Miller, a doctoral candidate in mechanical engineering, and Dr. Tony Keller, associate professor of mechanical engineering. The students, with help from Miller and Keller, designed and built a complex experiment intended to measure the activity of fruit flies in zero-gravity. The UVM team hopes the results will add to the scientific community's knowledge of the links between metabolism and aging. "I'm very impressed with the work the students have done," said Keller, who also advises Miller's work. "Too many undergraduate design projects are limited to pen and paper, which is why hands-on projects like this one are so beneficial. The students learn so much more about decision-making and basic engineering concepts when they actually have to build something that works."

PHOTO BY JEFF FITLOW From left, Megan Carroll, Noel Nutting, Dan Barnett and Dan Cheung participated in NASA's Reduced Gravity Program in Houston.

The experiment they brought to Houston worked - almost. There were problems with the electrical systems, including the critical heating and cooling units designed to keep the flies' environment at a constant temperature. Miller and the students spent many hours in the days leading up to the flights camped on the floor of their motel room, surrounded by tools and circuits and electronic gizmos, tweaking the experiment to make sure it ran just right. "Mark can tinker forever," Carroll muttered at one point, rolling her eyes.

UVM's first flight on the KC-135A on March 19 was canceled due to bad weather, which meant there would be two flights March 20; Barnett and Nutting would fly in the morning, and Barnett and Cheung would fly in the afternoon. To everyone's relief, March 20 dawned cool and breezy, with a high overcast and a forecast for clearing skies.

Barnett and Nutting pulled on olive-colored flight suits, boarded the KC-135A and, accompanied by the fruit flies, took off at 9:30 a.m. while the rest of the team watched a live video feed of the flight back at Ellington. After a short ride out over the Gulf of Mexico, the student fliers checked their experiments most were bolted to the floor of the airplane - one last time and prepared for weightlessness. The aircraft, a converted tanker similar to a commercial Boeing 707, creates zero-gravity in the open, padded cabin by flying a series of steep, rolling arcs between 25,000 and 35,000 feet; zero-g conditions exist for about 20 seconds at the top of each arc before the airplane plunges downward and begins another stomach wrenching 2-g climb. Each 2-1/2-hour flight includes 40 zero-g arcs, as well as an arc that simulates lunar gravity and one that simulates Martian gravity.

Barnett and Nutting floated about the cabin as if they were moving through very thin water, turning somersaults and monitoring the experiment, which ran too cool on the first flight. Barnett and Cheung went up in the afternoon, and the experiment, after a bit of hurried between-flight tinkering, ran perfectly. They floated about the experiment while explaining it to a NASA videographer, played zero-g catch with a small ball and gently squeezed a water bottle to fire off blobs of water that they tried to catch in their mouths.

The flights can be tough on fliers - about half of all KC-135A passengers experience nausea during the flights - but everyone seemed to think the plusses far outweighed the minuses. "It was a little rough on the old tummy," Nutting said, summing up his flight, "but it was still definitely worth it - it's the wildest rollercoaster ride I've ever been on."