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Encyclopedia of Bioastronautics pp 1–8Cite as

Parabolic Flight

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“Gravity is a habit that is hard to shake off.” – Terry Pratchett

Synonyms

Short-duration reduced-gravity flight; “The Vomit Comet”; Zero-G flight

Definition

Short-term weightlessness created by allowing an airplane to perform a “free fall” during a parabolic trajectory.

Weightlessness can be defined as absence of any external mechanical contact forces. Accordingly, an object in a free-fall condition is weightless when exclusively affected by gravity. Therefore, short-term real weightlessness is created within Earth’s atmosphere by flying an airplane along a parabolic trajectory correcting for air resistance. The parabolic flight platform has been used to study immediate effects of weightlessness on human physiology, physical, or combustion science, as well as astronaut training since the late 1950s (Haber and Haber 2009). Depending on the aircraft and flight pattern, anywhere from 10 to 45 s of weightlessness is generated, which is preceded and followed by an acceleration and a...

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Abbreviations

CNES:

Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales

CO:

Cardiac output

CVP:

Central venous pressure

ESA:

European Space Agency

G:

unit of gravitational force; 1G = acceleration due to gravity at the Earth’s surface = 9.80665 m/s2

HR:

Heart rate

ICP:

Intra cerebral pressure

NASA:

National Aeronautics and Space Administration

SV:

Stroke volume

TPR:

Total peripheral resistance

References

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, University of California, San Diego, Altman Clinical and Translational Research Institute, La Jolla, CA, USA

    Johan C. G. Petersen & Alan R. Hargens

  2. Department of Radiology, University of California, San Diego, Altman Clinical and Translational Research Institute, La Jolla, CA, USA

    Lonnie G. Petersen

Authors
  1. Johan C. G. Petersen
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  2. Alan R. Hargens
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  3. Lonnie G. Petersen
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Lonnie G. Petersen .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Room 37-219, Massachusetts Institute of Technolo Room 37-219, CAMBRIDGE, MA, USA

    Laurence R. Young

  2. Center for Space Medicine, Baylor College of Medicine Center for Space Medicine, HOUSTON, TX, USA

    Jeffrey P. Sutton

Section Editor information

  1. Department of Sensory Motor Physiology and Countermeasures, Institute of Biomedical Problems of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia

    Inessa Kozlovskaya

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Petersen, J.C.G., Hargens, A.R., Petersen, L.G. (2020). Parabolic Flight. In: Young, L., Sutton, J. (eds) Encyclopedia of Bioastronautics. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-10152-1_62-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-10152-1_62-1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-10152-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-10152-1

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Chapter history

  1. Latest

    Parabolic Flight
    Published:
    30 November 2020

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-10152-1_62-2

  2. Original

    Parabolic Flight
    Published:
    04 February 2020

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-10152-1_62-1

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