Let these describe the indescribable...

Today was the big day. 

Today, Dan and I rode aboard the KC-135, experiencing microgravity at its fullest.  I would like to preface this entry with the simple fact that nothing I write can describe exactly what I felt.  I can string a list of words together to circle around these feelings, but nothing can precisely convey the experience. 

A little background of the KC-135 for those of you who don't know.  The aircraft runs parabolas to simulate microgravity, lunar gravity, and Martian gravity.  During the ascent, the plane flies nearly straight up and we experience a 2g pull.  Then when the plane reaches the top of the parabola, it levels off, and then nosedives, which simulates the microgravity.  There are approximately 30s of 2g and 25s of microgravity.

So the following adjectives can provide insight into how I felt about my flight: awesome! sweet! totally cool! radical! superb! awe-inspiring! amazing! stunning! mind-blowing! shocking! wonderful! breathtaking! thrilling! uncanny! marvelous! staggering! fantastic!  I end each adjective with an exclamation to show my excitement over blogging.  I cannot underline this enough: microgravity was a tremendous experience.

Seriously, it was one of the best experiences of my life.  Floating in microgravity is nothing like you imagine.  Your brain simply cannot comprehend it.  You can prepare yourself for it.  You can imagine what it will feel like.  You can watch video of people floating around.  But you can't understand how it feels until it happens to you.  The feeling is incredible.  Nothing weighs you down, nothing hinders your movement, nothing is there to stop you.  Your body has total freedom.

Even now, as I'm typing, I can still feel residual effects of microgravity.  My body feels like it is floating, similar to the experience where your body feels like it is rocking back and forth after being on a boat for a while.  The only bad part about the whole thing was that it had to end.  After coming off the plane, everything seemed heavier.  We had 1.9 hours of flight time, and that definitely seemed too short.  I'm hooked; I want more microgravity!

A couple of questions and answers:

Q: Did you or Dan puke while you were aboard the plane?
A: No, we did not puke or feel very sick at all.  In fact, after slight queasiness in my stomach, the entire flight went by very smoothly.  Try not to be too disappointed.

Q: How did your experiments go?
A: Our experiments were pretty successful from a preliminary look.  We will not be able to tell how successful until after we stain them and look at them under a confocal microscope.  Of the 12 slide flasks we used, all of them were punctured except for two: one myoblast and one osteoblast.  We were even able to collect some data during the 2g pull.
 
Q: So now you're done flying, you can just rest and relax while the other two fly, right?
A: Au contraire mes amies.  Unfortunately, our experimental box seems to have a low reusability rating.  Tonight we will have to re-condition our box, meaning we have to suck out all the formaldehyde and redo a lot of the seals.  In fact, some of the needles became dislodged and we will have to reglue those.  Also, the Bouin's solution contained an acid that melted some of the foam sealant we used in the box.  We had to buy new sealant and dispose of all the old ones.  Suffice to say, we spent a lot of time after the flight in the lab working on all of this, and we will undoubtedly spend more time tonight working on the box some more.  Fortunately for John and Gary, they will get a chance to sleep before their flight tomorrow while me and Dan pull the night shift and fix the box.

Q: Was all the work worth it?
A: The answer to that question is an emphatic YES - most definitely.

We took lots and lots of pictures and we will post them as soon as we figure out how to/overcome our laziness to upload our pictures.  The NASA people also took pictures for us and as soon as they post them, we'll put up a link to let you guys see how silly we look in hypoxia states and floating around in microgravity.

Alright, I gotta go work on the box.  Gary and John fly tomorrow.  Good luck to them.