How are astronauts trained for weightlessness?
Before the astronauts going to space, they must be trained in a capsule, which is devoid of gravity, right? My question is how this room or capsule become devoid of gravity, and what is its machanism?
A person feels weightless when he is undergoing free-fall; for example a person who is diving from a high platform will feel weightlessness till he/she hits the water. NASA uses a modified KC135 four engine jet to fly on a parabolic orbit so that for a certain period of time, it is falling freely towards Earth. In this period, astronauts practice eating, drinking and using various kinds of onboard shuttle equipment. Training on these (called vomit comet) normally lasts from 1 to 2 hours.
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