Dispatch From University Park: The Young And The Weightless

Note: This article, written by Katie O'Toole, writer and co-host of "What’s In The News," a WPSX public television show, is the first of a series of installments about eight undergraduate engineering students working on an experiment to test modifications to exercise equipment used in space. O'Toole will file regular reports as the students prepare, build, and test their design at Penn State's University Park campus. In addition, she will travel to the Johnson Space Center in March with the students to test their project aboard NASA's KC-135 project, nationally known as the "Vomit Comet."

University Park — It’s almost 11:30 p.m. as the engineering students in Hammond Building review their assignments one last time. Flyin’ Lions team leader Bill Marshall, a senior in Mechanical Engineering, sets a deadline of noon on Wednesday. That leaves about 36 hours to order and pick up supplies, complete the submission form to the Biomedical Institutional Review Board, and work through some design problems. Team members Dawn Noga, a sophomore Engineering Science major, John Halenar, a senior in electrical engineering, and Ben Weber, a senior in mechanical engineering, nod confidently as they jot notes to themselves. Every nuts and bolts issue takes on heightened significance when the final product is headed for the stratosphere.

The Flyin’ Lions were chosen in December to participate in NASA’s Reduced Gravity Student Flight Opportunities Program. The program offers students the chance to design their own project and test it in a unique laboratory---NASA’s KC-135, a military version of a Boeing 707 nicknamed the "Vomit Comet." The four-engine turbojet flies a roller coaster path that provides brief but repeated intervals of microgravity.

The students have submitted their design for an improved Subject Load Device, a harness that will allow astronauts to exercise more easily and comfortably in microgravity. Soon the project will move off the pages of their graph paper, into reality…and beyond!

In this case, "beyond" is the Johnson Space Center in Houston where the KC-135 is based. The students are scheduled for two flights in March. On each flight, one student will be strapped into the harness doing deep knee bends and stepping in place while the second student monitors the computer data and spots the other. Providing ground support are team members Amy Seeman, a sophomore in chemical engineering and Mike Moss, Robyn Berridge, and Dana Ahmad, all sophomores in electrical engineering. Seeman will also serve as the back up Vomitnaut if one of the others can’t fly for any reason.

Despite a guarantee from astronaut Dr. James Pawelcyzk that they WILL become nauseous, each of the four designated flyers is eager to tackle microgravity head on--- or in any other position. Marshall and Weber have agreed to take the first shift aboard the KC-135. Any problems they encounter will be addressed on the second flight by Halenar and Noga. Their advisor, Dr. Sven Bilén, has shepherded student projects through the KC-135 program before. He knows the team must have a back up plan for the back up plan for the back up plan.

Before the evening ends, I’ve become part of the back plan. As the designated journalist required by NASA I’ve planned to chronicle the project on the second flight. Now I’m also the stunt double for Halenar or Noga if either becomes too ill to carry out the experiment.

The next phase of the project moves to the Penn State Learning Factory, a student manufacturing facility, where the Subject Loading Device will be built.