Swiss company buys jet for vomit-comet
The competition heats up: A Swiss company has purchased an Airbus wide-body jet for use as a commercial zero gravity vomit comet.
What makes this different than previous zero-g companies is that they plan to fly a lot of people for a reasonable amount of money.
Prices range from 2,700 Swiss francs ($2,826) for a seat in the “party zone” with up to 40 passengers to as high as 65,000 francs for the VIP Room, which will hold up to 12 passengers, who will also get a luxury watch and can keep their flight suit.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
The competition heats up: A Swiss company has purchased an Airbus wide-body jet for use as a commercial zero gravity vomit comet.
What makes this different than previous zero-g companies is that they plan to fly a lot of people for a reasonable amount of money.
Prices range from 2,700 Swiss francs ($2,826) for a seat in the “party zone” with up to 40 passengers to as high as 65,000 francs for the VIP Room, which will hold up to 12 passengers, who will also get a luxury watch and can keep their flight suit.
On Christmas Eve 1968 three Americans became the first humans to visit another world. What they did to celebrate was unexpected and profound, and will be remembered throughout all human history. Genesis: the Story of Apollo 8, Robert Zimmerman's classic history of humanity's first journey to another world, tells that story, and it is now available as both an ebook and an audiobook, both with a foreword by Valerie Anders and a new introduction by Robert Zimmerman.
The ebook is available everywhere for $5.99 (before discount) at amazon, or direct from my ebook publisher, ebookit. If you buy it from ebookit you don't support the big tech companies and the author gets a bigger cut much sooner.
The audiobook is also available at all these vendors, and is also free with a 30-day trial membership to Audible.
"Not simply about one mission, [Genesis] is also the history of America's quest for the moon... Zimmerman has done a masterful job of tying disparate events together into a solid account of one of America's greatest human triumphs."--San Antonio Express-News
“… passengers . . . can keep their flight suit.”
Based on the nickname for the plane, I’m guessing it’s because the company won’t want it back.
Greg the Geologist:
HAR–Good one!
In all seriousness however (after we hose down the inside of the VIP lounge HAR!)— can someone enlighten me please>>
As I understand it, something like “60%+” of people who go into “space,” (weightlessness) become ill, to some degree, with what we generically call “motion-sickness.” Transitory but ‘to some degree.’
Is this true?
Seem to recall our Astronaut’s had this going on as well, despite being experienced pilots, and NASA used a combination of scopolamine + Dexedrine on a PRN basis for “weightless-sickness.” (One of those pesky details of being in Space, I don’t hear a whole lot about…)
–I would assume a certain percentage of people arriving at the space-station experience some degree of “disruption” while they adapt??
Totally tangential— anyone aware of any studies on Cats & weightlessness?? Seriously!
Yo– don’t all laugh (at me) at once! Physiologists & assorted Researcher’s have been “dropping cats” since before high-speed photography was invented– that ‘righting-reflex’ they have, is only moderately understood. But I’m not aware of any work on what they do when gravity isn’t in play.
[–HAR, come on… we all know, if Cats had thumb’s, we’d be working for them..]
The video below should answer your question:
HAR!
Good one Mr. Z!
Wayne, you mean we don’t already work for cats? A friend of my sister reckons that cats are space aliens come to Earth to conquer humanity – and won.
Mike: >Great website! Wow! ( Is it hard to fly a sailplane?)
That is so cool! (all of it!)
(I only play an Engineer on the internet.)
HAR.. I’ve considered the Cat “alien-origin” theory, but as the video-clip clearly illustrates, Cats-In-Space, deserve further extensive study & research.
I don’t know about cats conquering humanity (although that would explain a lot), but it is clear that YouTube was created so that cats could share their videos, even if we humans do the posting.
Oh! We humans *have* been conquered and enslaved, after all.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJL6MocMxZo (“Cats train their human servants” 2-minutes)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnviOZmB1Fo (“A Cat’s Guide to Training Your Human” 2-minutes)
And if you are an engineer:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mHXBL6bzAR4 (“An Engineer’s Guide to Cats” 7-minutes — notice the references to regurgitation, to tie back into the topic of this post)
Wayne,
Long ago, in the very late 1970s, I worked at NASA’s Ames Research Center, right next to the department that was studying ways to reduce the “motion sickness” (AKA: “space sickness” or “space adaptation syndrome”) experienced by astronauts. Rather than using performance degrading drugs, such as Dramamine (would that work in space?), they were working on “mind over matter” methods by spinning the poor astronauts and jostling them up and down until they became nauseated, then they would teach them new techniques to reduce the nausea.
The word that I heard was that before the training, 50% would become nauseated, but after the training, the rate dropped all the way to 50%. However, this may have been an exaggeration in order to make a joke. It could be that severity and duration were reduced. Please note that I was not there long enough to hear about actual results aboard Shuttle flights.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_adaptation_syndrome#History
“About half of sufferers experience mild symptoms; only around 10% suffer severely.”
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/05/080521112119.htm
“This means that these symptoms are not caused by weightlessness as such, but more generally by adaptation to a different gravitational force.”
(Robert, sorry for all the links, but I figure that once you have to moderate a comment due to the number of links, I might as well not hold back. Of course, I try not to overdo it, either.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8yW5cyXXRc
pzatchok:
>absolutely hilarious!
This is pretty good, but not as funny!
“Slow Motion Flipping Cat Physics”
https://youtu.be/RtWbpyjJqrU
The “horizon sensor” attempts to lock onto the horizon, but failing that, the internal gyros in the ears take over. Conservation of angular-momentum is achieved, not with the tail, but by a sequential step-wise movement of the front & back paws, inward, as the Cat falls.