Tom's Zero G Flailing

I am and I'm Tom and this is the park bench should we get straight into the story yeah you're lucky bastard yeah so I got to do a zero-g flight we've known this was sort of coming for about six months now cuz it took a long time to make this happen and I said can I come along too and the answer was no they had one seat on one parabolic flight and and we and the camera op is provided who actually I mean I haven't so this is like a couple of days after I got back to the UK and I haven't got the story straight in my head yet so I'm gonna have to ask you to prompt me with questions okay - all right firstly who European Space Agency why because they are trying to get the fly your thesis program out which is why I was mentioning that at the end but and this was an education flight and most people on board we're researchers doing our genuine master's PhD thesis or following on work from those are the demands of professional careers so you had an email from a space agency asking you to play with one of their toys yes I did yes I did now there's one thing I know about you and you have a similar roller coaster and physical motion tolerance to me yeah and while I would absolutely say yes to a zero-g flight I wouldn't know how I would take it and I was worried about this as well so should I take you through what it was like cuz because I took the entire week we flew out of Bordeaux in France which is novice pass who run the plane and run although the facilities there so I flew up to board on Sunday on Monday so I'll talk you through day by day I fly on the Thursday I fly on the third of the three flights Friday was kind of left aside with anything got bumped because of web so they're doing flights all week they don't fly with science to one of they're doing flights Tuesday Wednesday Thursday one each day or I'm assigned to Thursday okay so Monday is the safety briefing among men Monday is orientation all the student researchers have been there for a week now already they're all in like little cubicles sorting out their equipment they've been are going on the plane off the plane filling it with kit getting everything checked out everyone else in the plane has a signed area in which they can do their science yes and they're all locked down and it's all been arranged well in advance every bit of kit on that plane has to be checked out well advance yeah one of the research teams are is literally bringing a furnace on board in order to test how wires combust in zero-g cool like the amount of clearance they must have to go through to get that on an experimental flight is in saying that they managed and if you've got a furnace on for that you can get a furnace on do some blacksmithing next I mean good less weight on the other hand lots of sparks they contain basically between each parabola and I'll get I'll get done but they had this kind of well-oiled routine of take the old thing out sample stove new sentence it because they had a anyway Monday safety briefing yeah which is you know in the big auditorium thing they've gotten one of the university facilities there and they run through what we're gonna go through and it's it's a pretty simple plan like hopefully if you if you've seen the video you know zero-g flight works but it's essentially you will hear a one-minute warning you'll have a 30-second warning yeah you'll hear five and then three two one pull up alright you're gonna be sitting down for a while and then you're gonna hear angled you're gonna hear 20 degrees 30 degrees for two reason another I'm not gonna hear the word injection which means we are now gonna having pushed you it up we're now just let you float in the parabolic trajectory and then you hear more you hear nothing for a while then as you start come down the other side you hear thirty forty and again these are angles pull out at which point if your feet are not or if this part of your body is not on the ground you are likely to be in pain some you know sometime pretty soon other things in the safety brief um there are there is one free-floating area which is where I was filming my thing everywhere else you cannot free float your feet or your legs must be strapped down unless there is a really good reason why you're not doing that and there are straps throughout the plane red ones for experimenters black ones for media it might be the other way around now but basically when the trouble starts you need to be under one of those or you're in the free-floating area or you're in the back of the plane which is decked out like a regular plane there's some seats there's that's why you do take a couple landing and that's where you go to throw up is you yes yes so you've had the safety briefing yeah you've been giving your lovely flight suit didn't get that until Wednesday didn't she Tuesday I watched other people go up I interviewed the pilot I watched soon go up who's from BBC and Easter TV she had a lovely time I'm just sort of steadily getting more nervous yeah as this goes on Wednesday get my flight suit I'll be honest there is something about putting on the flight suit that gives you a certain confidence did I did I film a slow-motion badass walk away from the plane of course I did and here it is what I love about that is that it's completely ruined by two things one my hair just bobbing like this and there's nothing you can do about no and - the name bag that's just flapping against Tom Cruise never had these problems but all you need there's an explosion in the background yeah I do ideally no I don't know oh yeah like the science and the other thing that gets me is that when the plane is on the ground obviously it's basically just free access to it because the researchers need to get their kit on there and off there oh yeah you don't have to do like boarding and check-in and every we have we have a security badge with our name on it and yeah and that badges is in but then we are on or working airfield we are air side there is a security gate to get through but then they I was basically told theoretically you get onto the runway from here don't do that [Laughter] so like I was familiar with the playing us for me with everything Wednesday comes and goes Wednesday was actually held back not the day just the flight for a couple hours because initially there was too much fog and ice to take off and then the plane developed a fault with its auxiliary power unit and full clout the engineers they detect immediately held us back for two hours held back through back for two hours and then off they went which also meant they had to get us a second injection the anti-nausea meds that can't been fun for them and it gets to Thursday and I am nervous because as you mentioned I don't like drops yeah we like we've been to a theme park we wait we're at Disney Disney yeah yeah and we discover that we basically have the exact same tolerance for drops neither of us like a drop we we don't like being afraid for and I realize in this is that it could be different mm-hmm I was really hoping it was gonna be different and you've said you had some anti-nausea meds yeah so that was like an injection yeah so yeah I like that humpback bridge feeling when you go over a bridge in your stomach goes like that do not like that yeah um so Thursday morning get in plain looks like there's just the plane at sunrise looking at it nervous I'm genuinely really nervous about this there also were that some of that dislike of drops is psychological oh yeah and some is just the fact you tense up how much so I get a flight suit on I go for the injection of scopolamine which is an antiemetic yeah which I got decent dose of that side effect completely dries out your mouth and throat you need to chew gum or something while you're up there if you're on that I was definitely on that and then it all happened really quickly okay because what it felt like hours watching other people do it's like go your injection cool you need to be on the plane now okay you set up your cameras now okay set up the cameras I've already got the cockpit shots by this point I got earlier flights so I knew those who say so just got a camera setup okay court you need to be sat down strapped in and then they do a safety briefing like they no more playing normal yep your oxygen mask will drop forever you see it there's a life jacket underneath the seat there's a smoke hood underneath the seat that's not standard and literally there is someone in an orange jumpsuit going exits are there there and there um this is a non-smoking flight I said apart from the furnace if the smoke on this flight you got a smoke cookies but other other than the unconventional flight path this is a standard flight it's on flight trackers it's got all sorry the weather's a bit dodgy on the normal thing so we fly out over the Med that's like a 45-minute trip it did not feel like it I'm just sat there and after 15 minutes just like talk you can unbuckle now great alright next parabola in 31st travel in 30 minutes that's point where my heart starts going okay I'm getting talkative I'm so two people I need to thank us but other than okay so I need to thank Easter obviously Rosita who was the coordinator for all the publicity team but specifically Neill who you all have seen in the video who's there who was the parabolic flight coordinator like I mentioned the video yeah he's here for my safety that's because that's what he was meant to do for that thing but he helps put the whole thing together he is so knowledgeable he's done so many parabolas the reason he's standing there looking on just wonderful he's done this a lot and my camera operator Melanie who was this was her celebration of her 500th parabola which is I saw her in the corner of a shot and she looked like she was just sat there with her yeah because during the 1.8 G sections that's a really heavy camera but also she's got a strap over like someone flagged away but I just if I could use this she celebrated her 500 for a blur by Neil attempting to set a new record for how many times he can spin someone during a parabola and given that her hair is whipping out behind her it looks spike he didn't quite set his record his hand slipped at one point but if you want to demonstrate on how fast you can send some around thinner shows it's good but that was afterwards because the first 10 parabolas are essentially mine everyone else in the in the craft is gonna be dealing with their experiments yeah I have the first 10 parabolas to myself in the free-floating area which is a lot and I see all the nerve Neil with you and if I had any all with me okay but only three people allowed an hour at a time oh so you had that space reserved for how to film you things yeah and then everyone else could use it yeah right so how many pallet parabolas were there in 230 so a third of the flight was yeah which that is incredible that's such a small section of space I could see where they wouldn't let anyone else come along because yeah that's tiny and I've decided that I'm gonna try and get a script to camera while floating in the first one did you have a pull-up parabola try just on the first one okay and that was for two reasons one is because I had to capture your reaction yeah why don't you capture the reaction we actually got a parabola zero before they start doing the official 1 through 1 to 30 they give you one for free as they call it just so everyone's used to what's gonna happen yeah but I've got a record during parabola zero two reasons one I've got it like I've only got 11 parabolas that's only 1120 second verse to get hopefully five bits of script out in the end I didn't use the last one but that's not much that's not many attempts particular no help on this I've got no notes visible I've just got to memorize my script yeah and to because it gives me something to concentrate on yeah if this is going to be as unpleasant as I think it is then the only thing that's gonna stop me freaking out is the fact that I have to deliver a script down the camera and I cannot let that go yeah I never get the one-minute warning so I sit down on the ground having never done anything like this before 30 seconds five three two one pull up and that's okay so it starts off with a positive G's one point a tree you start flowing straight and then you have to go up to get into the parabola to get the the it's at the top wither and it was recommended that I do the first one sat down all lined up and I've got a record this do you want my reaction I'm stuffing the ground so I do my script a camera and that goes okay and the timings good and it's exactly the right length I I say the word and we're about to go to freefall [Music] so here's the confusing thing this plane is still going up right now that camera is stabilized to the actual horizon and it's not until 10 seconds into our 22nd parabola into our manoeuvre that we clip the apex and start heading down towards the ground again like this whoa I basically let out a noise that is not a standard reaction to someone going in 2 3 4 normally here oh whoa what but I do I did want to normally do in a situation like that which I tense up yeah everything comes in and shakes a bit and I make out this make this what was it but the scopolamine has dried out my throat so it turns out that I actually injured my throat for a few days I ended up with a bad sore throat because of that and I do not get my script out on that first take my brains just completely I'm flailing I'm flow over the place and then we land near we go back into one point AG I end up on my front I think on that first one my fence I'm not sure it's all a bit of a blur but at no point did it feel like I was going over a humpback bridge really no point did it feel like going down a log flume or going in a rollercoaster or anything like that I felt nothing in my stomach at all and is that because your frame of reference is moving with you I don't know did it feel like you just started floating there did you have no other internal sensation of yeah it's just sorry oh I'm fighting now yeah probably one weird reaction didn't order parabola 0 where the action did not expect parabola 1 is the one you see at the start of the video so I'm still going well but that's more because of the weird thing I've I've pushed away from the floor and the floors just kept going and now I'm on the ceiling I don't know what to do here it's not a freakout it's not my stomach going I don't know what's going on here I'm going to I need to panic I need to get off this ride it's this is weird and if you look at that video and then the one will come out on Monday the second one which got another clip of me right at the end okay um the one at the end is parabola 9 and I'm just lying on the ground at the start no cross-legged on the ground the start of it I just kind of lift up and start talking and it's fine parabola 8 which I don't think is made to camera I'll put that one here I'm lying forwards on my front at the start because I've just learned if I can just push off slowly and then I'm floating so I guessed your first piece it's piece to camera was parabola 1 young because from what I've read and heard about people in zero in microgravity is that they just flail yes because they don't know what they're doing the instinctive reaction is to flail so I thought you haven't worked out you don't have to flail that must be number one yes and no one's told you not to flail yet because you're on camera they can only tell you afterwards that must be one the lighter ones I've learned not to fly and like I was just lying on the floor I pushed off and the thing that will stay with me for the rest of my life is that moment where I realized it was like a dream of flying you've had that you've had a flying dream yeah if you take away the fact that I've got no control like if there's nothing to hold onto I'm going in that direction and there's nothing I can do to change it I can change my rotation can't change the direction but if you take away the huh it feels like I'm dreaming of flying nothing nothing's my stomach's not dropping I I can't explain that maybe the stomach drop is about a jerk which is rate of change of acceleration rather than maybe if you went one zero one it would feel terrible but it doesn't it's and you're being told it's about to happen you the exact moment because they're telling you as well and you're not about into anything yeah um and then I got motion sick how far in parabola 10 so I got the 10 out I got all my stuff done yeah and then I have a look at the because it after each 10 there's a break of a couple minutes so after each 5 is a couple of a couple minutes 15 is a big long thing after Tower look at doc can go you know you said first sign of motion sitting the first sign of SOS from you stomach tell you yeah so I get a second injection of scopolamine on the plane over which I'm by probably 15 I was fine again okay but at that point I haven't got anything left to do the there was a Danish TV crew with a guy who doesn't think like he was trying to do things like folding t-shirts in zero-g and that that was their slot in the free yeah that was that was the previous day but he'd then done interviewed some people in the back yeah doing their experiments I couldn't do that because I needed footage of them doing their experience without me in it for the second video yeah so I'm sat for parabolas 10 15 where emotions sake I'm just sat strapped in at the back going through it so the last 15 I enjoyed them in from a seated position with a very loose seat belt on I'm just had a few seconds of floating like this each time and then back there which feels a little bit like a missed opportunity but there's nothing else I could do I didn't want to hog the free flow to areas loads of other people want to go in there yeah I didn't want to risk puking on or disturbing some else's experiment so I was at the back and then we landed and it was over and it's like right I've gotta do some interviews and some editing now and it's all back to normal and I really want to do it again I was gonna ask that because we had to go on the hovercraft yeah and both of our opinion after the that was that was great fun that was enough hovercraft I don't need to do that for a long time how soon would you go up in observe G tomorrow yep absolutely I really really really want to do that again did he do any spins then or did he stay upright for the whole time no this is how I missed that ability I basically learned how to hold myself stable yeah but at the end of like I had to get the script down the camera that was my job so I didn't have time to do the flips and the spins and the wall walk a Danish guy was able to do yeah I want to do all that stuff yeah he said he sort of giving me a flight now bad again so I'm gonna have to say at this point is if you are a space agency and you'd like to let me have a go at this kind of thing and also can provide the anti-nausea medication of it if you fountain and zeno is the emotive occasion that he had you would love it then please get in touch so there you go that's the zero-g story now I really know [Music] so well I want to hear

Channel: Matt and Tom

Views: 274,580

Keywords: matt gray, mattg, mattgray, unnamedculprit, tom scott, tomscott, tomscottgo, matt and tom, park bench, esa, european space agency, zero g, microgravity, zero, gravity, experiment, behind the scenes, space, astronaut, airbus, a310

Id: 2IrAU3eb1W8

Length: 20min 17sec (1217 seconds)

Published: Sat Dec 16 2017