SPC faculty to take part in NASA program
by Jason Hartline, staff writer

It’s not an Apollo mission, but three South Plains College instructors will get as close as mere mortals dare to experiencing space travel.

The faculty members will take part in the opportunity of a lifetime as participants in the Reduced Gravity Flight Program at Johnson Space Center in Houston. The flight program is slated for Jan. 8- Jan.17, 2009.

The SPC team includes: Shirley Davis, assistant professor of mathematics; Alan Worley, assistant professor of mathematics; and Charlotte Young, assistant professor of computer science. Ray Benge, a physics instructor from Tarrant County Community College, is the fourth member of the team.

Since 2002, the SPC Mathematics/Engineering Department has participated in NASA’s Texas Aerospace Scholars (TAS) program for community colleges. SPC has taken a team of 10 students to Johnson Space Center for the spring program. Because of SPC’s relationship with NASA, Linda K. Smith, program manager of Texas Aerospace Scholars at Johnson Space Center, contacted SPC instructors about the opportunity to participate in the Reduced Gravity Student Flight Opportunities Program. This is the first time ever that a group of college instructors has been selected as a team, according to Young.

“As part of our flight training, we will be conducting an experiment using a pendulum and harmonics isolator with weights on two springs,” said Young. “Does the factor of gravity affect the pendulum swing?”

The goal of the experiment will be to take video in antigravity, hyper-gravity and 1G, regular earth gravity, and measure its affect on the pendulum, according to Young. The team selected this experiment because of the weight restrictions placed on them by NASA. Each article that will be used in the testing is weighed and must undergo stress testing.

Young added that safety is a priority, and experiments utilizing liquids are not allowed.

The reduced gravity aircraft generally flies 30 parabolic maneuvers over the Gulf of Mexico. This parabolic pattern provides about 30 seconds of hyper gravity (about 1.8G-2G) as the plane climbs to the top of the parabola. Once the plane starts to “nose over” the top of the parabola and descend toward Earth, the plane experiences about 25 seconds of microgravity (0G). At the very top and bottom of the parabola, flyers experience a mix of partial G's between 0 and 1.8 (called “dirty air”).

The flight will consist of about 40 to 50 parabolas. Similar flights are often used to train astronauts to do tasks in zero gravity, as well as to analyze how things perform in microgravity.

“It’s called the Vomit Comet,” said Davis. “Participants in the flight program have been known to lose their lunch quite a bit during the simulation. It’s the roller coaster ride of a lifetime.”

Davis said that participating in this program can only be topped by actual space travel. Davis had taken the last team to NASA for its Texas Aerospace Scholars trip last spring. Each SPC instructor will share their hands-on experiences with their students. Additionally, the team will be available to speak with schools and organizations within the community upon request.

“One of the criteria for us to do this program is to come back and share what we’ve learned with the community,” Young said.

The data collected from the experiments will be used as examples in classroom situations. Computer science classes will be asked to write programs to compare predicted data to actual data and analyze the results. Math classes will be able to work on problems presented with a “real world” application.

According to Worley, he will make his presentations geared toward elementary-age students. “This is where the learning starts, and I want to show them that math is fun,” Worley said.