00:00 European scientists are turning an aircraft into a laboratory that simulates lunar gravity,
00:05 and Space.com has taken a ride aboard this plane with them.
00:09 There is only one way to experience the feeling of being on the Moon while still on Earth,
00:14 or rather a few thousand feet above its surface - in a parabolic flight.
00:20 Only parabolic flight can reproduce the Moon and Mars gravity.
00:24 There is no other facilities, other facilities only simulate, but not recreate the real one.
00:32 On board our plane, this is a real gravity field.
00:35 There are a couple of drop tower type solutions that can do lunar gravity on a very, very
00:39 small scale, but only for a couple of seconds and only for hardware.
00:44 If you want to get yourself, to get people into lunar gravity, you have two options.
00:49 You can either come on this aircraft or you can go to the Moon.
00:52 That's it.
00:53 Parabolic flights, best known for producing weightlessness, follow a wild trajectory of
00:58 fast, steep climbs and short, carefully managed free falls.
01:02 During those free falls, objects inside the plane experience either brief spells with
01:07 no gravity at all, or, if the pilot flies the parabola just a little differently, reduced
01:13 gravity.
01:14 We'll fly this aircraft like the aircraft is falling down, but not too much, to keep
01:24 just the gravity we need.
01:26 I mean 0.16 g for Moon gravity or 0.38 g for Mars.
01:34 The French company Novespas, based in the famous winemaking city of Bordeaux, is Europe's
01:39 only operator of parabolic flights and prides itself on their ability to generate lunar
01:45 or Martian gravity conditions with scientific precision.
01:49 In the last week of April, scientists from all over Europe descended upon Bordeaux's
01:55 airport and turned the Novespas plane into a lunar gravity research lab.
02:00 Until recently, there's been more demand for flights that produce weightlessness, but
02:04 with the renewed interest in Moon exploration, spearheaded by the NASA LED Artemis programme,
02:10 the need for artificial Moon-like conditions is on the rise.
02:15 This is the first time that the European Space Agency is doing a full parabolic flight campaign
02:20 in partial gravity, so we do lunar and Martian, because of the request of all the experimenters
02:27 and participants.
02:29 Of course, we are most interested in the lunar environment and lunar partial gravity, because
02:34 this is what will help us to prepare for the Moon exploration.
02:39 Scientists know quite well what no gravity does to human beings and technology, thanks
02:44 to years of research on the International Space Station.
02:48 But they know very little about the effects of the Moon's gravity, which is one sixth
02:53 that of Earth, or Martian gravity, which is a little stronger than one third of Earth's
02:59 gravity.
03:00 We know only very little about the effect of the Moon's gravity or life on the Moon
03:06 on the human being, since we were on the Moon for only a limited period of time.
03:11 And there's an additional factor about it, because we cannot simulate Moon gravity on
03:16 Earth so easily.
03:18 For instance, Badiou's studies, we know they can simulate microgravity, but no one really
03:22 knows what is the right condition to simulate lunar gravity, and neither Mars.
03:27 So we are really in a kind of still black box, where we don't know exactly what the
03:33 human being will be faced to and how he will cope to these conditions on the Moon when
03:38 he stays more than a few days, I would say.
03:41 Each reduced gravity spell during the flight lasts just under half a minute and is preceded
03:47 and followed by 20 seconds of hypergravity when the plane speeds up and steeply rises,
03:53 and then when it recovers from the freefall state.
03:57 During one flight, the plane performs 30 such maneuvers, with only brief periods of steady
04:02 flight in between.
04:04 By carefully analysing what happens with the experiments during these short periods of
04:09 reduced gravity, scientists can gain a better understanding of what might await future Moon
04:15 explorers.
04:17 In this experiment, scientists are filming the behaviour of human immune cells inside
04:23 special containers.
04:25 The researchers know that in weightlessness, immune cells struggle to reach the infection
04:30 site, which makes astronauts more prone to illness.
04:34 Now they want to know whether the same effect occurs in lunar and Martian gravity.
04:39 We have seen at least in this experimental setting that when there is really no gravity
04:43 at all, we have a centralisation of the cell flow in the middle of this flow chamber, so
04:48 it was even, so they were faster and centralised.
04:52 So to get in contact with a vessel wall might be already because of this much harder.
04:59 Yes, and now we are just investigating the same issue in lunar and Martian gravity.
05:05 On board the flight is also a 3D printer that uses a type of plastic mixed with simulated
05:11 lunar dust to print simple tools.
05:15 This is the first time researchers are testing its performance in lunar gravity.
05:20 But the most interesting piece of equipment on board is this vehicle, developed by a team
05:25 of researchers from the European Astronaut Centre in Cologne, Germany.
05:30 It's called LISA for Lunar Equipment Support Assembly, and it's essentially a lunar wheelbarrow
05:36 that may one day help astronauts on the Moon transport equipment or injured crew members.
05:42 Is it difficult to operate something like this on the Moon?
05:45 It's not really difficult to operate it because it's much lighter, because of the lower gravity,
05:51 but it's more difficult when you have uneven terrain.
05:55 Stevenin and his team created a little obstacle course inside the plane to test three versions
06:00 of LISA during the parabolic flights.
06:03 Here, European astronaut Thomas Pesquet has a go operating LISA in Martian gravity.
06:10 What we want to test is how an operator, an astronaut, let's say, in lunar gravity will
06:18 work, what is the locomotion that will be applied to pull and push this kind of equipment,
06:25 and how the equipment will react over uneven terrain, and how you have to control it.
06:31 This will give us some feedback to improve the next prototype, next generation, and to
06:37 define is it better with four wheels, is it better with three wheels, is it better to
06:41 have one handle, two handles, what would be the best configuration.
06:46 Astronauts train in parabolic flights to prepare for weightlessness, which they experience
06:51 on the International Space Station.
06:54 But the Novespas plane, which is the largest in the world capable of flying parabolic flights,
06:59 could in the future be turned into a sophisticated training ground to prepare astronauts heading
07:05 to the Moon.
07:06 In this experiment, Stevenin and his colleagues perform simple tasks in lunar gravity while
07:12 wearing a virtual reality headset running a simulation of a region near the lunar South
07:16 Pole where future Artemis missions will land.
07:20 In this case, the test subjects move a box of tools that they see in the virtual reality
07:25 simulation, but which is also physically present in front of them.
07:30 In the future, the setup may become more complex and include, for example, the LISA wheelbarrow
07:36 and a physical mock-up of a lunar lander.
07:39 When you wear this headset, the resolution is so high that it's, wow, I'm on the Moon,
07:45 it's very impressive.
07:46 Now, if in addition, what you try to grasp is you have the virtual, the partial gravity
07:53 that is added to the virtual environment, and when you want to move around, you move
07:57 like on the Moon, you are really embedded into it.
08:01 And we are convinced that there is a high potential for astronaut training in the future
08:06 combining these two technologies.
08:10 The Artemis programme expects to land humans on the Moon in 2025.
08:15 By the end of this decade, NASA plans to build a permanent base camp near the lunar South
08:20 Pole that will host crews of four astronauts for up to one month.
08:25 For comparison, the longest of the Apollo-era landings 50 years ago lasted barely three
08:32 days.
08:33 [Music]
08:39 [Music]
08:42 (whooshing)
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