FLIGHT 001. MICROGRAVITY INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH, October
2001

Arts Catalyst 2nd parabolic flight, Star City, Russia

The Arts Catalyst, the science-art agency, has selected a number of London and Russian artists and scientists to develop experimental projects in zero gravity on a 'parabolic flight' (diving aircraft) with the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre, Star City, Russia, or ground-based projects in Star City, during a visit in October 2001.

Time and place
Flight 001 Microgravity Interdisciplinary Research (MIR), Arts Catalyst's second parabolic flight and the test flight of the MIR network, will be conducted from the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre airport near Zvezdniy Gorodok (Star City) on Wednesday 3rd October 2001.

One flight of 10 parabolas is foreseen. Flight briefing will be conducted on the 1st October. Aircraft set up will take place on the 2nd October.

Focus of the flight
The flight is being organised by The Arts Catalyst with Projekt Atol Flight Operations, Slovenia, in association with TV Gallery in Moscow.

This project launches our new initiative to develop opportunities for artists to make projects relating to the space programme, and to promote interdisciplinary exchange between artists and space scientists and engineers and intercultural exchange between nations.

Funding for this flight has required that artists are from London or Russia. We hope to make other opportunities available in future.

London and Russian artists and scientists selected for the visit (some flying, some ground-based) are:
Anna Alchuk, artist and poet
Ansuman Biswas, artist and musician
Alexei Blinov, engineer and member of Raylab
Anthony Bull, biomechanics scientist, Imperial College London
Jem Finer, artist and musician
Kevin Fong, doctor, lecturer in space medicine, University College London
Edward George, musician and member of Flow Motion
Andrew Kotting, film director
Trevor Mathison, musician and member of Flow Motion
Judith Palmer, freelance journalist
Anna Piva, musician and member of Flow Motion
Mikhail Ryklin, scientist and philosopher
Morag Wightman, dancer
Louise K Wilson, artist
Andrey and Julia Velikanov, artists

Organizers: Nicola Triscott and Rob La Frenais from The Arts Catalyst, Marko Peljhan from Projekt Atol Flight Operations and Masha Chuikova from TV Gallery will be accompanying the group. On-flight project coordinators will be Nicola Triscott and Marko Peljhan.

This is a pilot project for the MIR (Microgravity Interdisciplinary Research) network, a group of international arts organisations working to enable access to space facilities for artistic practice, to encourage interdisciplinary research among artists and scientists, and to promote arts and cultural activity as part of the international space programme.
Our visit to Moscow will be important outside the parabolic flight itself. The time spent as a working group - artists and scientists from different countries - will be valuable for the cross-fertilisation of ideas. The visit to Star City will enable us to develop our relationship with the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre and will let artists visit the other opportunities available there – neutral buoyancy facility, Mir mock-up, centrifuge. A performance by the UK electronic music group Flow Motion will be given in Star City on Wednesday 3rd October.

Background Information
One of the most fascinating aspects of manned space flight is the state of zero gravity or weightlessness: astronauts and objects floating in air. But it is only recently that this extraordinary 'by-product' of the space programme has been recognised as a rich scientific resource, with a multitude of experiments – from human physiology to fluid physics – queuing up for the space agencies' parabolic flight programmes and for the new International Space Station. To date, the aesthetic possibilities of zero gravity have barely been explored, in part due to the exclusiveness of the environment, accessible only to astronauts and scientists.

In recent years, a small handful of artists have managed, through negotiations with international space agencies, to access the restricted environment of parabolic 'zero gravity' flights - the only way to achieve weightlessness for a significant duration within the Earth's atmosphere. The Arts Catalyst is now able to offer this opportunity to other artists through our relationship with the Yuri Gagarin Centre and with Projekt Atol Flight Operations in Slovenia.

The Russian Federation is a nation with a large space programme. To carry out this programme it is necessary to train cosmonauts in real conditions of space flight – zero gravity. To achieve zero gravity in earth conditions, the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre uses the flight of a special flying laboratory on a parabolic trajectory. They have extensive experience of these flights. The IL-76 MDK is a very large aircraft specially adapted for parabolic flight.

Gravity and Zero Gravity ("Microgravity")
Gravity affects all physical, chemical and biological processes on Earth. Gravity forces the Moon to fly around the Earth and the Earth around the Sun. Gravity holds the solar system, our galaxy and the universe together. Gravity generates our sensation of weight and keeps us on the Eart h's surface. Life began and developed on Earth more than 3500 million years ago, with gravity as an ever-present influence. Gravity causes sedimentation, buoyancy, convection in fluids and hydrostatic pressure in liquids. It is therefore not surprising that all life has developed with gravity-sensitive processes and systems.

Gravity cannot simply be switched off, but its effects can be removed with an equal and opposite acceleration force. The resulting equilibrium - a state of floating in air – is called "weightlessness" or "zero gravity". The only ways to achieve weightlessness in relation to the human body are through off-planet space travel and orbit (such as on the International Space Station) or in "zero-g" aircraft flying parabolic trajectories. In both, the mechanism is the same. Weightlessness onboard the space station is not the result of being in space (the effect of gravity at an altitude of 400 km above the Earth's surface is only slightly less strong than on the Earth's surface itself), but the result of a free-fall situation around the Earth.
Scientists use the term 'microgravity' to describe this state of balanced forces, as there are slight varying gravitational effects through the length of the aircraft or space station.

Description of a Parabolic Flight
A parabolic flight creates the conditions of zero gravity – otherwise only experienced for any length of time in orbit or space travel – by putting an aircraft into a series of diving manoeuvres. They are undertaken by a handful of space agencies around the world specifically for astronaut/cosmonaut training and scientific experiments.

A block of air space between 6000 and 10000 metres is needed. The aircraft follows a precisely-calculated flight path that almost exactly matches the parabolic curve traced out by any object falling freely – a thrown stone, for example. While it is on that parabolic trajectory, the aircraft and everything inside it – people and objects – are weightless.

Since aeroplanes are not usually designed to behave like free-falling rocks, the whole procedure requires some very accurate flying. The pilot first brings the aircraft to near-maximum speed - more than 800 km/h – in level flight. Next, they haul the machine into a gut-churning 45-degree climb, and throttle back the engines to provide just enough power to match air resistance. Nudging the flight controls as required, the pilot lets the aircraft "free-fall" for around 2,000 metres, over the top of the parabolic curve and down again to its starting altitude. Then they put full power back on and pull the machine abruptly from its dive back into level flight.

During the 25-30 seconds between climb and pull-out, weightlessness is experienced and everything floats around freely in the aircraft. The number of parabolas on a single flight may be between 10 and 30. We are planning 15 parabolas for our flight. During the fierce accelerations when the aircraft climbs into and pulls out of a parabola, apparent gravity is doubled. This means your weight doubles. The transitions between 2G (double gravity) and 0G (weightlessness) are swift. The flight can be very hard on stomachs - nausea and sickness are common – and weightlessness can be disorientating.

Planning the time and space on the parabolic flight is the primary consideration (after health) to undertake good projects. When bodies are flying around, there is a reduction of apparent space and often a sense of time distortion. Added to the sense of disorientation, lack of weight and lack of control, this is a very challenging environment for artistic or scientific projects. For dancers, there are difficulties with movement memory (a result of lack of gravity effects on the body), but studying video images may help to create this memory.

video: 128 Kbps. fragment

The site has been created with the assistance of the "Open Society Institute" (Soros Foundation). Russia