Fighting gravity: Central Florida students enjoy Zero G flight

Many people have wondered what it would be like to be completely weightless, but few people ever experience it. A group in the University of Central Florida’s Students for the Exploration and Development of Space (SEDS) took it a step further than wondering and experienced zero gravity through a program sponsored by Space Florida. Space Florida is a state agency that is trying to enhance the space industry in Florida. Their goal is to try to get companies to have headquarters in Florida as opposed to more popular places, such as California. “There are three foundations, and they are business development, improvements in work-force development and having a good education base, which is where my involvement is,” said Larry Chew, an associate engineering professor at UCF who oversees the program. Chew provided an experiment for the students to build. There were six groups that worked to create and design their own experiments. Three were from UCF, two were middle school groups, and one was a high school group. “I gave them the dimensions for a box, which were 9-by-12-by-16, and the only restriction was that no flammable material could be used,” Chew said. From the six groups, one person from each was given the chance to go on a Zero G flight completely free of charge. This also gave them the opportunity to try out their experiments in a setting with zero gravity. This is the first year Space Florida has sponsored a program like this, because teachers who want to promote space education in the classroom are usually the passengers on Zero G flights. One of the people selected to go on the flight was unable to attend at the last minute, so one of the UCF groups was able to fly two members. That group was SEDS at UCF. Stephen Hirst, the group leader and a freshman aerospace engineering major, and Ben Corbin, a senior engineering major, had the luck of the draw - literally. “We did a drawing to make it fair,” Hirst said. Hirst said he hopes to work for NASA in the future, but this was his first time working on a project like this. “I was selected to be group leader because everyone wanted me to get the learning experience,” Hirst said. “I will definitely need the leadership skills.” Hirst said the most difficult obstacle to overcome as the group leader was the large amount of paperwork. It took them about two months to complete their creation. There were six students working on the project, called “14 Minutes to Midnight,” which happened to be the time it was finally finished.