So this all started about 2 years ago. I saw that a teacher in my county had been accepted into a program called Northrop Grumman Foundation's Weightless Flights of Discovery. I found the website and found out that all the spots for Baltimore were full. I kept checking every month or so to see if they had listed the spots for the next year.
Finally they listed the spots for 2008, but there were no locations in this area. I kept watching the website, though and FINALLY they posted the locations for 2009...and Washington, DC was one of them! I applied the week after the application was posted, about a month before the deadline, and started waiting...and waiting...and waiting! I knew the workshop was on the 15th of August, and I knew that we wanted to be on vacation at some point around this time in August. I decided that we would just go ahead and make plans and try to be back in the DC area by the night of the 14th. I got my acceptance letter on July 7th and was very excited! I made sure we would be back from vacation in time and started thinking about what experiment I would take on the plane.
Well, the day of the workshop finally arrived. I met the other 29 teachers who are going to accompany me on this wild trip! I got fitted for my flight suit, got my mission patch, and a bag with all sorts of neat space stuff. Then we spent half of the day learning how the weightless experience works. The company which flies the airplane I will be riding on is the same one which does the weightless training for the astronauts. We will start off by simulating Martian gravity (1/3 of Earth's) and then two Lunar gravity parabola's (1/6 of Earth's) and finally about 12-15 truly weightless parabola's. We watched videos showing the plane, people inside the plane, and different experiments which we could do.
The second half of the day we got in groups and started working on our plans for the flight. I am working with Pam, another teacher in my county, and Lisa a middle school math teacher. We are doing experiments involving weight, density, and mass. It will be lots of fun and I think we all left feeling very excited! Now we just have to wait for 6 weeks until we fly! I am ready for October 2nd to be here now!
