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Your point is taken, but I think you're being overly pedantic. A parabolic arc with a larger height enables a longer period of weightlessness. You're welcome t

Your point is taken, but I think you're being overly pedantic. A parabolic arc with a larger height enables a longer period of weightlessness. You're welcome to debate whether it's good value for money, but the article's statement isn't wrong -- Xcor's spacecraft can (EDIT: theoretically) provide 90 seconds of weightlessness because of the height to which it travels. You can't replicate the same experience on the vomit comet; its service ceiling and maximum speed aren't high enough.

dehrmann 8y ago
Does Vomit Comet "weightlessness" feel the same a zero-g weightlessness? In the Vomit Comet, sure you're floating around, but you're really just free falling.
- dreamcompiler 8y ago
  You're just free-falling in orbit too. It's exactly the same thing.
- ars 8y ago
  > as zero-g weightlessness No Human has ever experienced zero-g weightlessness, and none ever will. There is no part of the universe that is zero g. Gravity on the ISS is almost the same as gravity on Earth (90% of it). Even distant planets experience the gravity of the sun, and the collective gravity of the milky way. Instead what you have is free fall - that's basically what orbit is, you are falling toward the planet, but moving forward fast enough to keep missing. It sounds like a joke when phrased that way, but it really is what's happening. Do you wonder what it feels like to float in the space station? It feels like falling. Just constant falling without ever hitting anything. It does NOT feel like floating or flying. I assume the brain eventually gets used to the feeling, but not in 90 seconds. If you want to experience something at least kinda close to it, go sky diving, which feels like falling with something pressing on whatever part of you is pointed into the wind. If you want to experience floating, go scuba diving. If you want to experience flying, go to a sky diving simulator (vertical wind tunnel).
- garmaine 8y ago
  ...which is the same thing. Astronauts in the ISS are really just free falling.
- lfowles 8y ago
  Zero-g weightlessness in orbit is just free falling with the exception that you're not going to hit the Earth on the way "down".
rdtsc 8y ago
> provide 90 seconds of weightlessness Vomit comet gets about 25 seconds but can do 60 or more such periods in a single flight. So in total they'd have 25 minutes of weightlessness which is about 16x more than 90 seconds and it might cost a bit less than $100k, though I don't think NASA sells those commercially.

dehrmann 8y ago

Does Vomit Comet "weightlessness" feel the same a zero-g weightlessness? In the Vomit Comet, sure you're floating around, but you're really just free falling.

dreamcompiler 8y ago
You're just free-falling in orbit too. It's exactly the same thing.
ars 8y ago
> as zero-g weightlessness No Human has ever experienced zero-g weightlessness, and none ever will. There is no part of the universe that is zero g. Gravity on the ISS is almost the same as gravity on Earth (90% of it). Even distant planets experience the gravity of the sun, and the collective gravity of the milky way. Instead what you have is free fall - that's basically what orbit is, you are falling toward the planet, but moving forward fast enough to keep missing. It sounds like a joke when phrased that way, but it really is what's happening. Do you wonder what it feels like to float in the space station? It feels like falling. Just constant falling without ever hitting anything. It does NOT feel like floating or flying. I assume the brain eventually gets used to the feeling, but not in 90 seconds. If you want to experience something at least kinda close to it, go sky diving, which feels like falling with something pressing on whatever part of you is pointed into the wind. If you want to experience floating, go scuba diving. If you want to experience flying, go to a sky diving simulator (vertical wind tunnel).
garmaine 8y ago
...which is the same thing. Astronauts in the ISS are really just free falling.
lfowles 8y ago
Zero-g weightlessness in orbit is just free falling with the exception that you're not going to hit the Earth on the way "down".

rdtsc 8y ago

> provide 90 seconds of weightlessness Vomit comet gets about 25 seconds but can do 60 or more such periods in a single flight. So in total they'd have 25 minutes of weightlessness which is about 16x more than 90 seconds and it might cost a bit less than $100k, though I don't think NASA sells those commercially.