Would-be astronauts will soon be able to experience the thrills of a zero gravity flight for about 3000 euros – just under 4000 US dollars. A US based company have already been offering zero-gravity flights since 2006 but this will be a first for Europe. It gives a whole new meaning to flying high. A group of specially invited guests find out what it feels like to be weightless. Amongst the lucky few aboard the Airbus A300 was Reuters journalist Tim Hepher. [Tim Hepher, Journalist]: “It feels as though something is compressing all the bones in my body and driving them downwards to the base of my spine and in a moment, it’s forty degrees, we are climbing up forty degrees then it will be forty-seven degrees – ‘injection’, that means we are weightless and actually, I’m being turned but I can’t control my own movement, this is really quite an amazing feeling.” Passengers are treated to a trip across the Atlantic. The plane is flown along a series of parabolic arcs in an air corridor, which causes the “zero gravity” effect. The cost of the flight will be around three thousand euros or four thousand US dollars. That will buy you roughly 11 minutes of weightlessness. Zero gravity only occurs on the way down, when engine power is sharply reduced. But Novespace, part of the European space agency, say they’re not aiming to make a profit. They simply want to use the flights for scientific research. Parabolic flights could be used to help better understand the causes of high blood …
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