00:00Humans are returning to the Moon.
00:03They haven't been there for more than 50 years.
00:06But how do you prepare for a visit to such a different world, where your body weighs
00:10only one-sixth of its earthly weight, where everything happens in slow motion, and where
00:16equipment carefully tested on our planet can surprise you in many unexpected ways?
00:22It turns out that there is one way to experience the feeling of being on the Moon while still
00:28on Earth, or rather a few thousand feet above its surface.
00:33Hello, I'm Teresa Poultarova and I'm a senior writer at Space.com and today I'm here
00:39at Bordeaux Airport in France and behind me is a very interesting aircraft.
00:45It's an Airbus A310.
00:48Since 2015, the French company Novespas has been using this plane to conduct parabolic flights,
00:55that is flights that simulate weightlessness or reduced gravity, such as lunar gravity
01:00or Martian gravity.
01:01And tomorrow I'm going to take part in one such flight.
01:05Parabolic flights are best known for simulating weightlessness.
01:09You must have seen footage of people floating around the aircraft cabin.
01:14Pilots create these brief spells of no gravity by putting the plane into short, carefully calculated
01:20periods of free fall as they follow a wild up and down trajectory of steep climbs and nerve-wracking dives.
01:28But it turns out that if you fly the parabola just a little differently,
01:32you end up feeling like on the Moon or on Mars.
01:40Apparently, this plane is the largest in the world that can be used for parabolic flights.
01:45The cabin has been stripped of almost all of its internal equipment.
01:50There are only a few seats left and there are almost no lockers on board.
01:54I'm meeting Eric Dele Salle, Novespas chief pilot and captain of my flight.
01:59With nearly 30 years of experience piloting parabolic flights,
02:04Dele Salle is one of only eight European men capable of executing these flights with such accuracy
02:10that generates reduced gravity with scientific precision.
02:16Hello, I'm Teresa from space.com.
02:19Would you mind if I ask you a couple of questions?
02:22I will be on the flight tomorrow and I'm quite nervous about the whole thing.
02:25No, it's absolutely no problem. It's a great pleasure.
02:27Please have a seat, Teresa.
02:29I'm Eric Dele Salle. I will be the captain for the flight tomorrow.
02:33Wonderful. So, can you tell me a little bit what's going to happen tomorrow?
02:36Where are we going to fly and what are we going to do?
02:39Tomorrow we will fly near the coast, the Atlantic coast, far from Bordeaux.
02:46We will be flying flights that simulate lunar and Martian gravity. Is that true?
02:54Yes, it will not be a simulation. It will be a real apparent gravity that we have on Moon or
03:03on Mars.
03:04So, what makes a difference between a parabola that gives you the lunar gravity
03:08gravity and the Martian gravity or no gravity at all?
03:12It's just a matter of how much we push on the stick.
03:16If I give you a ball and please throw it in such a way it will stay as long as
03:21possible in the air.
03:22So, you will throw it up and then from the time you release the ball, it will become to fall
03:30even if still climbing at the beginning.
03:33Yeah, understand?
03:34And then we have the zero. We just push so that the aircraft will pull up first.
03:43And then when we reach a given altitude, we push on the stick so that the aircraft will do that
03:49as if it was falling down in the vacuum. That is for the zero.
03:54And to keep lunar, it will be a little less trump and much even less.
04:03Unlike on your regular flight, there will be four pilots on board, three of them actively
04:08controlling the aircraft at the same time. One pilot will be in charge of the plane's pitch.
04:14The other will control its roll. The third will act on the throttle. After each set of parabolas,
04:21one pilot will take a break and will be replaced with a spare.
04:26The difficulty is to be very accurate. And that's our objective. So, we share the three axes
04:34and the aircraft between the three pilots. So, one is flying the pitch,
04:39and it is making the zero G or the moon or Mars gravity. And we use this kind of thing
04:48here,
04:50that we put here, like that. I plug that to have the radio. And then so, from now on, this
04:59pilot
05:01can only act on the pitch and I cannot do that with that. You see, this one, you can do
05:07both,
05:08pitch and roll, pitch and roll. And with this one, I can only use pitch. And during that time,
05:16the other pilot will use a very technical equipment, these two things here.
05:28And it can act on the roll without pulling or pushing, so that the two pilots are flying the
05:37aircraft at the same time. And the third pilot is acting on the throttle. Let's go back in the cabin.
05:45Preparations for tomorrow's flight are in full swing here as well. Ten scientific teams from all over
05:52Europe are installing their equipment, making sure it's secured in a way that it won't pose any risk
05:59during our wild ride. Here I'm meeting Neil Melville, the European Space Agency's parabolic flight campaign
06:06coordinator, who will serve as my minder, making sure that I, the rookie flyer, won't cause too much chaos
06:15during the flight. We are doing some real science here, some fundamental science, but also some
06:21technology tests and demonstrations, because these flights are going to be very special. They're about
06:26lunar gravity and Martian gravity. So we're testing hardware and systems that we're really going to take
06:31to the moon to see if we can get them working the way we want in a much kind of
06:36cheaper and easier
06:36environment than flying all the way to the moon with it. So are there any other ways how we can
06:41simulate
06:41lunar gravity on earth apart from being on a plane like this? It's not easy at all. There are a
06:48couple
06:48of like drop tower type solutions that can do lunar gravity on a very very small scale, but only for
06:54a
06:54couple of seconds and only for hardware. If you want to get yourself, to get people into lunar gravity,
07:01you have two options. You can either come on this aircraft or you can go to the moon. That's it.
07:06That was all really interesting. I think I've seen enough today and we will be back tomorrow in the
07:13morning. Good morning. I'm back at Bordeaux airport. It's the 25th of April 2023, 8 in the morning and
07:23today is actually my 40th birthday and I'm going to celebrate it in style. Right now I'm waiting to
07:30receive my anti-vomiting medication. Parabolic flights are sometimes called the vomit comet.
07:38And I will be honest with you. Do you remember that kid that used to throw up on every school
07:43trip?
07:44That was me. But never mind. This drug that I'm just going to receive cuts the risk of nausea to
07:51one in 10 people. So let's hope that it works for me as well. I also need to change into
07:57my flight suit
07:58and now I'm ready to go. We will fly west of Bordeaux, above the Atlantic Ocean,
08:04climbing to the altitude of about 20,000 feet. That's below the cruising altitude of commercial
08:11airliners, but well above the altitude frequented by lighter aircraft. Our pilots will then perform
08:17four sets of seven to eight parabolas, two lunar sets and two Martian sets. In between,
08:23we will have only three five to eight minute breaks. This is partial G. It's a little bit different to
08:31what we normally fly for those that have flown before with us. Please make sure you pay attention
08:36to the safety crew. Make sure that we all stay healthy and safe during the flight. Right. We are ready
08:42to go.
08:43Each parabola starts with a climb at a 50 degree angle to the altitude of nearly 30,000 feet.
08:50You can hear the engines roar. The acceleration pins your body into the floor with double the force
08:56of Earth's gravity. It's a peculiar feeling. But it lasts only about 20 seconds.
09:08Then injection. The engines stop. Silence. Everything slows down.
09:17Experienced scientists don't waste any time. But the rookies like myself can get a little carried away.
09:24Welcome to the moon. It feels magical. This is seriously cool. The 2G is not that cool. I need to
09:32lie down.
09:33The plane is descending. Our bodies get pinned down again. The experienced flyers stop in their tracks.
09:42Us rookies seek a more comfortable position on the floor. Then about a minute and a half of steady flight.
09:49Normal gravity. And then it starts again.
09:54I brought with me a lunar gravity indicator. It's a soft toy moon handmade specifically for this occasion
10:01by my colleague Daisy Dobrievic. In lunar gravity it spins and bounces like in slow motion.
10:09Gradually I'm gaining more confidence. Lunar gravity feels good. But what will remain hard for me until
10:16the very end are the 2G phases before and after the reduced gravity. Wow. It's really quite interesting.
10:24The 2G during the pull-up feels a little funny. But yeah. Wow. Amazing.
10:31For now I won't allow that to stop me enjoying this otherworldly experience.
10:36Now it feels as if I only weigh 10 kilos. She's right. 10 kilos. Definitely no more than that.
10:46Nice and easy.
10:54It's time for our first break. We are receiving a very special visitor.
11:00One of our pilots has a break and has come to see the experiments.
11:04He might look a little familiar. These days he is better known for flying to the International Space
11:10Station. One of our pilots today is actually the astronaut Tomas Pesquet. I'm not kidding. Could you
11:16say hi to space.com readers? Sure. Hi everyone. Nice to fly with you today. So we're on this flight
11:22that is simulating lunar gravity. What role will these flights have in the future Mars moon exploration?
11:28Well it's here that we're testing everything as you can tell around you. There's the technology,
11:33there's the engineering, the science. Not so much the astronauts but they'll come at some point to train
11:37also to prepare for those flights and get a taste of what it's going to be like to walk on
11:41the moon.
11:41That's the only place on Earth that you can test with people around their experiments and experience
11:48what it feels like to walk on the moon. So that's where it starts and it's all going to happen
11:52up there.
11:53And while I'm trying to survive the uncomfortable 2G phase on the padded floor again,
11:59Tomas Pesquet has a go piloting a device that might one day help astronauts transport equipment on the
12:05moon's surface. For me things are soon going to get a little difficult. We're more than halfway
12:12through. We have finished all our lunar parabolas and also one set of the Martian parabolas and we
12:19still have one Martian set to go. I find the 2G during the pull-up particularly challenging but
12:28so far so good I haven't I didn't have to use my back yet so it's all good. Despite the
12:35strong
12:35medicine that I had received before the flight I lived up to my childhood reputation and once
12:40again was the sickest kid on the trip. But in the meantime all science teams completed their tasks
12:47without much difficulty. When the final parabola finally arrived I was relieved. 1G felt good.
12:54It was a two-hour roller coaster and certainly the most intense thing I have done in my whole life.
13:00It would take me a while to process the experience.
13:16So now I know what it feels like to walk on the moon and Mars. I will certainly remember this
13:23experience for the rest of my life. But right now I'm quite happy to have my feedback on the ground
13:29of
13:30our very special planet Earth. Thank you for watching.
Comments