How Students Are Testing Medical Devices For Future Astronauts

Students fly on 32 parabolic arcs, each with 20 seconds of microgravity in which to conduct experiments. NASA/Microgravity University Three Stanford University students float weightless about 30,000 feet above the Gulf of Mexico, as they wiggle a probe into a mannequin's esophagus and try their best not to vomit. The undergrads hope to learn whether a portable ultrasound machine can take useful images of the heart--in this case, the lifeless heart of a $26,000 dummy--in zero gravity. The parabol...