LOGAN -- Troy Munro is back in Houston this week and next, leading a team of other Utah State University student scientists and engineers who will take their first research flight in NASA's "Vomit Comet."
Logan resident Munro, 24, flew last year, and this time has announced his plans to abandon ship and keep his feet on the ground.
"There's a reason they call it the Vomit Comet," he said. "Last year, I threw up at least five times in zero gravity, a sixth time coming down, and again at the hotel. Then I slept for 4 or 5 hours."
It's a sacrifice the electrical and aerospace engineering student was happy to make -- once. This year, five new students will make the flight on the specially modified Boeing 727, and Munro and one other student will stay grounded in gravity. The USU group will participate in the Reduced Gravity Student Flight Opportunities Program today through June 11, with flights scheduled for June 9 and 10.
All seven have worked on refining last year's heat transfer experiment, which tested the possibility of using water to diffuse excess equipment heat that might otherwise damage or disable vital equipment on a space craft. A relatively small amount of water would be lighter and less complex than the motorized fans currently used.
The Utah State team's research is all about the bubbles created by boiling water, and just how those bubbles might behave without gravity to force them to rise. The students have prepared silicon chips, partially covered with platinum, for use in their experiment.
Munro said last year, nine USU students made the trip to NASA.
"It's getting harder and harder to be accepted, because they are taking fewer schools," he said. "About three years ago they used to have four flight weeks and could take 50 schools. This year, they have only one flight week, and only 14 schools are participating. You send a proposal, and if NASA accepts it, you start looking for funding and you build your experiment."
Munro said Utah State was accepted along with teams from schools including Yale, Cornell, MIT and California Polytechnic.
"I'm excited to represent Utah to NASA alongside of those other schools," he said.
The NASA invitation includes tours of the Johnson Space Center, including places tourists don't get to go, Munro said. The USU team members also will take a training course.
"Before your first flight, you have training, so you will be prepared in case something goes wrong," he said. "They also taught us about motion sickness and what to expect."
NASA officials' main suggestion was to limit head movement. "If you need to turn, you move the head and the body together," Munro said. "The brain and the senses get different signals. Your body thinks it is not moving, and your eyes see that you are. The reaction is to make you throw up."
Last year, that advice and the motion sickness medicine provided by NASA helped for a while, Munro said.
"But we had to move our heads around to do our experiment," he said. "This year, we designed it so more movement is controlled by switches."
Munro said weightless sessions last about 30 seconds, and there are about 30 sessions in the flight.
"Nobody really asks me what weightlessness feels like, but it's amazing," he said. "You are floating, and you don't really think about it. You don't feel attached to anything. You hold your arm out straight, then you forget it is there. The smallest motion can make you do things you don't expect. I was strapped in, and I flexed my foot and started tilting."
The question everyone asks about his Vomit Comet flight is whether he lost his lunch.
"That's the most common question," Munro said, with a sigh.
"It was the chance of a lifetime, and I will always be glad I did it," he said. "I knew going in I am predisposed to motion sickness. A day at Lagoon leaves my legs wobbly."
Comments