NASA Designing Faster Planes G Forces 2009

Jeff: Hi, I'm Jeff Briggs from NASA Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio and I'm an aerospace engineer working on the Space Flight Program for NASA. We're here at Cedar Point Amusement Park in Sandusky, Ohio for math and science week; this is where students from all over the Midwest come here to learn about some of the ways math and science are used in everyday life and they get to have some fun and ride the rides as well.

I actually got to come here when I was in high school to go to physics day and ended up with a Graduate Degree in physics so obviously they're doing something right.

Amusement parks are a great place to learn about some of the ways that the equations you learn in the classroom are used in real life. For example, if you look at the Power Tower behind me here some of the things the rider's experience are microgravity and G Forces these are things that engineers on the Space Flight Program use every day in their jobs. So let's take a ride and find out for ourselves, come on.

So here we are in the Power Tower. The Power Tower was built in 1998 for $10 million and since it's been open 15 million people have ridden it. I think it gives about 1 million rides every summer. So the Power Tower is about 300 feet tall and I'm gonna be launched straight up at 50 miles an hour to a height of 240 feet. Thank you sir.

Worker: Yup

Jeff: So what we're gonna experience on this ride is what's called G Forces, so I'm gonna get shot up and experience about 4 G Forces; this means I'm gonna feel 4 times heavier than I would in normal gravity.

Clear

Jeff: This is really close to the same thing that happens to astronauts when they're launched up on a rocket except on the rocket launch I think it's about 2 to 3 G Forces. So this is the same feeling as you get when you're in the car and someone hits the gas and you get pushed back in your seat, so I'm gonna get slammed right down in my seat as soon as we get launched up. So I think we're about ready to go. Alright, here we go.

[ Background noise ] Jeff: Now, on the way back down we're gonna experience just the opposite G Forces; this is called microgravity and you're gonna feel lighter than you would under normal gravity. So when I got -- fall down I was falling down at the same rate as this ride and got launched out of my seat.

This is the same thing that astronauts feel when they're up in the Space Station except in my case I'm falling down toward the earth and astronauts in the Space Station are falling down around the earth and the astronauts are falling around at the same rate as the Space Station. So when you see astronauts on the Space Station they're floating around in the air like they don't weigh anything which is what happens in microgravity.

So hope you're having a good day and maybe sometime you can try this at your local amusement park.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• NASA
• Designing
• Faster
• Planes
• UPDATE
• 2009
• space
• test
• Glenn
• Research
• Center
• Cleveland
• Ohio
• aerospace
• Earth
• engineer
• working
• Flight
• Program

[ThirdSon13]

On a NASA page, Mission Specialist Koichi Wakata states that g-forces felt by astronauts during a Shuttle launch are a max of 3-g's, and then only for the last minute or so!

So, Jeff Briggs' technical data is correct.

The Power Tower acceleration IS 4-g's when getting 'launched' upwards like Jeff did. I've measured it!

[MrMicrogravity]

The 'microgravity' time also happens when he is still going up towards the top of the ride - when he's "falling up".

[DALEKDAVE45]

@p8ntballplaya1995 its a friggin programme....sheesh....but i do agree with you on the amount of g-force a shuttle/rocket launch has...yeah its about 7-9 lateral G's...and the power tower is about 3G's...nowhere near the equivalent of a shuttle launch....if hes gonna present a program about space and physics he needs to get his facts right!

[p8ntballplaya1995]

1. dont talk about G-forces and astronauts unless you know about them,

they experience up to 12G in some areas, mostly 7-9 during take-off.

2. so you expect to be put more G-forces on in an amusement park then people do with years of training and a billion dollar space ship launching them into space, HA! 2-3 G's my sorry ass .

and 2. when you get shot up it's nothing like being in a car, when you're in a car and you accelerate you travel in the X axis not the Y axis, like you just did smart1