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This summer six students and two professors from the University of Maine system will travel to Houston, Texas to run experiments on a zero gravity flight at NASA’s Microgravity University, a Reduced Gravity Student Flight Opportunities Program. The team is one of 40 that has been selected to participate.
The focus of the experiments is to see if gravity has a role in the effects of toxins in lung cells. The team will test lead and silver particles, and these experiments will be compared with experiments done under normal gravity conditions.
“Finally, we will examine if the reduced gravity will adversely affect the DNA repair mechanisms of the cell,” said Benjamin Freedman, a student who will be going on the flight. Freedman’s role during the flight is to stop the experiments after each zero-G period. Freedman explained that he will either freeze the cultures or use Vitamin A to stop toxin uptake.
“The results will help determine whether additional precautions will be needed during prolonged space flight to protect astronauts and cosmonauts on future space missions,” Freedman said. After the experiment, all the data will be sorted through at the University of Maine.
Though NASA covered the cost of the flight and the use of their facilities, the group had to fundraise the money for the trip and their lodging. “We had to pay for our own travel costs . we have to get our own equipment,” said Michael Mason, assistant professor of chemical and biological engineering at UMaine. “They provide the space and we get to use all of their lab and infrastructure when we get there.” The team was awarded a matching grant from the Maine Space Consortium.
To achieve zero-G, the plane must fly in a parabolic curve. As the plane descends toward earth, its acceleration will match that of gravity, causing a neutralizing effect in which there is the sensation of weightlessness. For each descent, there is about 25 seconds of microgravity (a zero-G environment) followed by 30 seconds of hypergravity (1.8G-2G) as the plane flies upward. To keep everything from crashing against the plane during hypergravity, things are bolted down or are strapped in with Velcro. The parabola is repeated thirty times. Due to the repetitive and extreme changes of G-forces, the flight has been affectionately dubbed the “Vomit Comet.”
Along with Freedman, John Wise Jr. from USM, the team leader, Adam Courtemanche of USM and Michael Brown of UMaine, will be the people who go on the flight. Acting as ground crew will be Mason and John Wise Sr. Director of the Wise Laboratory for Environment and Genetic Toxicology at USM, along with Nick Link of South Portland High School and James Wise of USM, who is an alternate flyer.
Wise Sr. came upon the program and Wise Jr. took the time to get the team and proposal together. They have been working on it since the beginning of the first semester. Since their project has been approved, each of the team members will have to undergo a medical exam to ensure they are all in good health. Psychological training will be done at Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas.
The group also plans on visiting local high schools to disseminate their results upon completion.
More information on NASA’s program can be found at microgravityuniversity.jcs.nasa.gov.
