They undergo intensive training and preparation. They're equipped with motion sickness pills and two vomit bags. They attend classes and suffer through hypoxia — all in order to experience weightlessness.
In contrast to many unluckier students, the four Penn State undergraduate engineering students traveling on NASA's modified, uncertified Boeing 707 — the KC-135 "Vomit Comet" — did not have to use their airsickness bags as they performed their physiological experiment.
The Flyin' Lions returned last week representing Penn State for the first time at NASA's Reduced Gravity Student Flight Opportunities Program, administered by the Texas Space Grant Consortium.
They spent about a week at the Johnson Space Center in Houston.
"Overall the trip was great. It was a big success," said Ben Weber (senior-mechanical engineering), one of the Flyin' Lions that experienced microgravity on the KC-135.
"We collected very significant data and at the same time we had a lot of fun, and that's just what it's all about," he added.
The trip began with a tiring 25-hour drive from State College to Texas. Accompanying the students was Katie O'Toole, WPSX-TV writer and co-host of the public television show What's In the News.
Walking into a hanger at Ellington Field on the first full day, the students mingled among various other universities participating in the Reduced Gravity program, as well as NASA researchers, flight directors and astronauts.
"The neatest thing the first day was that the crew from (space shuttle flight) STS-102 came back, as well as the first team from the International Space Station," said Flyin' Lion Dawn Noga (sophomore-engineering science).
Noga added the astronauts returning from their trip were noticeably limping from the muscular atrophy that occurs during prolonged space visits.
"We realized how important exercise was," she said.
The Flyin' Lions were to experiment with their active Subject Load Device (SLD) -- an instrument that uses computers to monitor the position of exercising astronauts in microgravity and compensates to allow for greater range of movement and exercise variation.
Currently, astronauts are limited to exercises where their hip level remains fairly stationary.
The lack of exercise variation could contribute to the accelerated bone loss recorded by astronauts that stay for an extended time in space.
Day two for the Flyin' Lions started off with classroom lectures dealing with microgravity and the Vomit Comet.
"We spent the morning in the classroom, and they taught us everything and anything we ever wanted to know about hypoxia," said Bill Marshall (senior-mechanical engineering), student leader of the Flyin' Lions, referring to a condition when the body does not receive adequate oxygen.
The weekend was spent touring the Johnson Space Center, visiting various exhibits, debugging the SLD computer and preparing for the Test Readiness Review on Monday morning.
"Monday was kind of a big day for us," Marshall said. "Flight directors, the pilots, the flight surgeons come around, and you give a short talk on your experiment and safety issues."
John Halenar (senior-electrical engineering) gave a short presentation to the NASA reviewers on their experiment, highlighting the safety and worthiness of their active SLD.
"I think Penn State had a very good showing down there. They passed the Test Readiness Review with flying colors," said Sven Bilén, the group's co-adviser and assistant professor of engineering design and graphics and electrical engineering.
Monday afternoon, as part of their pre-flight training, the Flyin' Lions were fitted with oxygen masks and entered the altitude chamber — an enclosed, airtight room.
At first, the students breathed the pure oxygen through their masks for 30 minutes.
Air was then sucked out of the altitude chamber until the pressure was equal to that of the atmosphere at 25,000 feet.
The situation was similar to what would happen if the plane were to suddenly lose cabin pressure.
"It's really important to do that, because some people had problems with their ears or their sinuses," Noga said.
Then, to study the effects of hypoxia, the masks were doffed.
"Everyone has different symptoms of hypoxia, and they wanted us to know what our symptoms were, so they made us take off our oxygen masks," Noga said.
While they were off oxygen, the students were asked to fill out a quiz and to document their symptoms every minute.
The hypoxic effects came after about four to five minutes without the oxygen masks.
Marshall said he felt nothing more than a little chill and lightheadedness.
In contrast, Noga said, "By the end, I was getting tired, I was getting dizzy, I had blurred vision."
For Weber, hypoxia was like getting drunk. "I got all goofy, and it was weird after I took off my mask, and they made the pressure equal to what it would be at the 25,000 feet."
After the altitude chamber training, Tuesday and Wednesday was spent working on the SLD and loading the 220-pound experiment into the Vomit Comet.
Thursday morning — the first day of flight — Marshall and Weber awoke to a phone call from Penn State President Graham Spanier.
"He just wished us good luck. It was about six in the morning, so we were just getting up," Marshall said.
Halenar, Noga and O'Toole took the second flight on Friday.
"Unfortunately, we weren't able to get the active system working," Marshall said. "We took the system up as a passive system, so we could get some data, just not as much as we liked."
Problems continued to plague the experimental apparatus through both flights.
"There were some computer glitches," said Bilén. "One was simple hardware. It turned out that the power supply they had running the computer failed."
Bilén added that problems arose with the computer's operating system, Windows 2000.
"They were able to get the system working to passive level," Bilén said. "We were able to get some baseline data. The hope is that another group will be able to use the active system."
Despite the bothersome computer difficulties, the flyers enjoyed their time aboard the Vomit Comet, which alternated between 30 seconds of weightlessness and then forces about twice that of earth's gravity as the plane followed a roller-coaster trajectory.
"I'm loaded into the harness, and all of the sudden, I started floating up," Noga said. "It was really a difficult affair ... I was just floating all over the place."
Other Flyin' Lions expressed amazement as they drifted about the cabin.
"You're going right from two G's, and then suddenly everything starts floating," Marshall said.
"You're pressed into the ground, and all of the sudden, these big lights in the cabin go on, and these big flashes tell you microgravity is coming soon, and all of the sudden, you're floating," Noga said. "It was an incredible feeling."
Each flight had about five schools conducting their experiments in the KC-135 cabin, as well as directors, pilots and sometimes astronaut trainees onboard.
In the history of the six-year Reduced Gravity program, no flight has gone without at least one person vomiting — otherwise known as a "kill" — Marshall said.
However, during Marshall and Weber's flight, no one threw up. Hanging the picture of the entire flight crew and students in the Reduced Gravity program office marked the historic event.
There were four "kills" during Halenar, Noga and O'Toole's flight, although none of the Penn State people threw up.
The students spent some of their weightless time conducting their experiment and some time playing with the microgravity — bouncing off walls, throwing balls across the cabin and playing "Twirl-a-Girl" with Noga.
"That's really the favorite part of the whole flight, because that's when you're experiencing the whole sensation of microgravity," Marshall said.
Now that the Flyin' Lions are back in State College, Noga — the only underclassman who went to Houston — is already looking forward to competing for another spot in the Reduced Gravity program next year, a goal which her teammates enthusiastically support.
"One of the things I like to see with this program is that it continues here at Penn State," Marshall said. "I do hope that students in the future take this up."
Bilén, who said he would consider advising another Penn State team, agreed with Marshall.
"I thought they were incredibly professional and represented Penn State in a good way," he said. "They've laid a good groundwork for future teams to go."
