00:00European scientists are turning an aircraft into a laboratory that simulates lunar gravity,
00:05and Space.com has taken a ride aboard this plane with them.
00:09There is only one way to experience the feeling of being on the Moon while still on Earth,
00:15or rather a few thousand feet above its surface, in a parabolic flight.
00:20Only parabolic flight can reproduce the Moon and Mars gravity.
00:24There is no other facilities, other facilities only simulate, but not recreate the real one.
00:32On board our plane, this is a real gravity field.
00:35There are a couple of like drop tower type solutions that can do lunar gravity on a very
00:39very small scale, but only for a couple of seconds, and only for hardware.
00:44If you want to get yourself, to get people into lunar gravity, you have two options.
00:49You can either come on this aircraft, or you can go to the Moon.
00:52That's it.
00:54Parabolic flights, best known for producing weightlessness, follow a wild trajectory of
00:58fast, steep climbs and short, carefully managed free-falls.
01:03During those free-falls, objects inside the plane experience either brief spells with
01:08no gravity at all, or, if the pilot flies the parabola just a little differently, reduced gravity.
01:15We'll fly this aircraft like the aircraft is falling down, but not too much, to keep
01:24just the gravity we need.
01:26I mean 0.16 g for Moon gravity, or 0.38 g for Mars.
01:34The French company Novespas, based in the famous winemaking city of Bordeaux, is Europe's
01:40only operator of parabolic flights, and prides itself on their ability to generate lunar
01:45or Martian gravity conditions with scientific precision.
01:50In the last week of April, scientists from all over Europe descended upon Bordeaux's
01:55airport and turned the Novespas plane into a lunar gravity research lab.
02:00Until recently, there's been more demand for flights that produce weightlessness.
02:05But with the renewed interest in Moon exploration, spearheaded by the NASA-led Artemis programme,
02:10the need for artificial Moon-like conditions is on the rise.
02:15This is the first time that the European Space Agency is doing a full parabolic flight campaign
02:20in partial gravity.
02:21So we do lunar and Martian, because of the request of all the experimenters and participants.
02:29Of course, we are most interested in the lunar environment and lunar partial gravity, because
02:34this is what will help us to prepare for the Moon exploration.
02:39Scientists know quite well what no gravity does to human beings and technology, thanks
02:44to years of research on the International Space Station.
02:48But they know very little about the effects of the Moon's gravity, which is one-sixth
02:53that of Earth, or Martian gravity, which is a little stronger than one-third of Earth's gravity.
03:00We know only very little about the effect of the Moon's gravity or life on the Moon
03:06on the human being, since we were on the Moon for only a really limited period of time.
03:11And there's an additional factor about it, because we cannot simulate Moon gravity on
03:16Earth so easily.
03:18For instance, bed rest studies, we know they can simulate microgravity, but no one really
03:23knows what is the right condition to simulate lunar gravity, and neither Mars.
03:27So we are really in a kind of still black box, where we don't know exactly what the
03:33human being will be faced to and how he will cope to these conditions on the Moon when
03:38he stays more than a few days, I would say.
03:41Each reduced gravity spell during the flight lasts just under half a minute, and is preceded
03:47and followed by 20 seconds of hypergravity when the plane speeds up and steeply rises,
03:53and then when it recovers from the freefall state.
03:57During one flight, the plane performs 30 such manoeuvres, with only brief periods of
04:02steady flight in between.
04:04By carefully analysing what happens with the experiments during these short periods of
04:10reduced gravity, scientists can gain a better understanding of what might await future Moon
04:15explorers.
04:17In this experiment, scientists are filming the behaviour of human immune cells inside
04:23special containers.
04:25The researchers know that in weightlessness, immune cells struggle to reach the infection
04:30site, which makes astronauts more prone to illness.
04:34Now they want to know whether this same effect occurs in lunar and Martian gravity.
04:39We have seen, at least in this experimental setting, that when there is really no gravity
04:43at all, we have a centralisation of the cell flow in the middle of this flow chamber, so
04:48it was even faster and centralised.
04:52So to get in contact with a vessel wall might be, already because of this, much harder.
05:00Yes, and now we are just investigating the same issue in lunar and Martian gravity.
05:06On board the flight is also a 3D printer that uses a type of plastic mixed with simulated
05:11lunar dust to print simple tools.
05:15This is the first time researchers are testing its performance in lunar gravity.
05:20But the most interesting piece of equipment on board is this vehicle, developed by a team
05:26of researchers from the European Astronaut Centre in Cologne, Germany.
05:30It's called LISA for Lunar Equipment Support Assembly, and it's essentially a lunar wheelbarrow
05:36that may one day help astronauts on the Moon transport equipment or injured crew members.
05:42Is it difficult to operate something like this on the Moon?
05:46It's not really difficult to operate it because it's much lighter, because of the lower gravity,
05:52but it's more difficult when you have uneven terrain.
05:55Stevenin and his team created a little obstacle course inside the plane to test three versions
06:01of LISA during the parabolic flights.
06:03Here, European astronaut Thomas Pesquet has a go operating LISA in Martian gravity.
06:10What we want to test is how an operator, an astronaut, let's say, in lunar gravity
06:17will work, what is the locomotion that will be applied to pull and push this kind of equipment,
06:25and how the equipment will react over uneven terrain, and how you have to control it.
06:32This will give us some feedback to improve the next prototype, next generation, and to
06:37define is it better with four wheels, is it better with three wheels, is it better
06:41to have one handle, two handles, what would be the best configuration.
06:46Astronauts train in parabolic flights to prepare for weightlessness, which they experience
06:51on the International Space Station.
06:54But the Novespas plane, which is the largest in the world capable of flying parabolic flights,
06:59could in the future be turned into a sophisticated training ground to prepare astronauts heading
07:05to the Moon.
07:07In this experiment, Stevenin and his colleagues perform simple tasks in lunar gravity while
07:12wearing a virtual reality headset running a simulation of a region near the lunar south
07:17pole where future Artemis missions will land.
07:20In this case, the test subjects move a box of tools that they see in the virtual reality
07:25simulation, but which is also physically present in front of them.
07:30In the future, the setup may become more complex and include, for example, the LISA wheelbarrow
07:36and a physical mock-up of a lunar lander.
07:40When you wear this headset, the resolution is so high that it's, wow, I'm on the Moon,
07:45it's very impressive.
07:46Now, if in addition, what you try to grasp is you have the virtual, the partial gravity
07:53that is added to the virtual environment, and when you want to move around, you move
07:58like on the Moon, you are really embedded into it.
08:01And we are convinced that there is a high potential for astronaut training in the future
08:06combining these two technologies.
08:10The Artemis programme expects to land humans on the Moon in 2025.
08:15By the end of this decade, NASA plans to build a permanent base camp near the lunar south
08:20pole that will host crews of four astronauts for up to one month.
08:26For comparison, the longest of the Apollo-era landings 50 years ago lasted barely three
08:32days.
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