Soccer Ball in Zero Gravity

This video shares the experience of a research scientist and an undergraduate university team from Nebraska while performing research and education outreach on a microgravity aircraft (aka: vomit comet). The soccer ball shown in this video contained a ContourHD camera (donated by VholdR.com) and 3 high precision gyroscopes (donated by gyroscopes.com) to stabilize the ball in pitch, yaw, and roll while in microgravity.

More on gyroscopic stabilization here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdAmEEAiJWo&feature=related
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gyroscope
http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/gyr.html#gyr2

The purpose of the flight was to conduct NASA related research in microgravity while involving university students to this research planning, development, data collection, and analysis. The program involved flying several experiments on two flight days for a total of 60 microgravity parabolas. The abstract for the research is here:
http://microgravityuniversity.jsc.nasa.gov/SE/theProjects/project-detail.cfm?...

NASA's Microgravity Program:
http://microgravityuniversity.jsc.nasa.gov/

NASA's SEED Microgravity Program:
http://microgravityuniversity.jsc.nasa.gov/SE/

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• zero
• gravity
• zerog
• zero-g
• spinning
• reduced
• 727
• zerogcorp
• corp
• cero
• nasa
• student
• microgravity
• university
• airplane
• plane
• houston
• space
• ben
• longmier
• nebraska
• team
• vomit
• comet
• weightless
• zerogravity
• experiment
• apollo
• 13
• ellington
• field
• johnson
• center
• augustine
• commission
• results
• obama
• seed
• gyroscope
• vholdr
• contourhd
• stability
• axis
• 3-axis
• ad
• astra
• rocket
• company
• vasimr
• sunpower
• cryocooler
• football
• foot
• ball
• american

[kentafan123]

Oh, so the vuvuzelas are really gyroscopes?

[strikerofear]

that ball is tripping balls

[happinesson]

i want to be inside that zero gravity box! I want to experience how it feels floating in the air upside down.

[energyadvertiser]

Someone should make a zero g soccer computer game. You could use jet packs to get around faster. Any computer game producers like this idea?

[brolly9001]

@Drasteek I know right If I did that I would throw it around and kick it not just sit and hold it

[drasteek]

why bother inserting a camera into a soccerball when u don't even play soccer... just throw the damn camera around no?

[CommissarBraxton]

Thats not a beehive sound. Thats a distant vuvuzela.

[haddii2324]

0:19 = Super Saiya-jin ^.^

[blade12090]

From the ball's prospective... lol!

[harvinsi]

@aurasmash True and since this was an experiment done by Americans, courtesy of the US space agency, and uploaded on an American owned website, I think its valid to call it a soccer ball. Go USA.

[saheb1b]

cool

!!!!!!!!

[wellingtonbosharpe]

It's called football guys.