by: KELLY LAI
It was extremely hard to wake up this morning, knowing that it was our last full day in Houston and our last flight day. It felt like our zero gravity adventure had just started, it was impossible that the week went by so fast. To my dismay, I woke up with a knot in my stomach and a stuffy head.
Team Excellent (Addie, Brad, Allyson, and I) loaded into the car and headed to Ellington Field for the last time while the rest of the team continued to sleep in. Once we got to Ellington, we checked the pressure of the tubes, ~7 and ~16 mTorr!
We had our medical briefing at 8:15 am. Brad definitely looked better taking the medicine today than he did yesterday. Good thing, because we were going to take a total of 60 parabolas today. However, I had to make Allyson hold my hand due to my anxiety with needles.
Another pre-mission briefing and before we knew it, we were strapped in on the plane ready for take off! There was a nasty storm cloud in our path to get out to the Gulf, so it was especially turbulent in the beginning, but the rest of the flight went by smoothly.
Team Excellent tackled a total of 60 parabolas – 20 more than the normal amount! We managed to test 15 tubes and Addie even had the opportunity to make a video about angular momentum in zero gravity. The flight went perfect, except for one incident. We thought it was a straight and level and sat up to fix our experiment, but to our surprise the pilot was headed for hyper-g and we all slammed back onto the floor. Even though it was my second flight, it is still a surreal experience. The first parabola always surprises me. You start to lift up when micro-gravity hits and you find yourself fighting to keep your feet on the ground.
Once our flight ended, the rest of the team back in the high bay greeted us. After lunch, we started cleaning and packing up our materials to ship back to Orlando. It took us about three hours to pack everything up in the crates. We turned in our badges and took one last look at the NASA C-9 that gave us unforgettable memories.
-
- =
-
- =
-
- =
