BW Student from Strongsville Takes a Wild Ride on Zero-Gravity Plane

Maia Matyas of Strongsville is one of five Baldwin Wallace University students who helped conduct research during a wild ride on NASA’s “Weightless Wonder,” the microgravity university plane.

The BW experiment was one of 14 selected for NASA’s 2013 Reduced Gravity Student Flight Program.

“It was a once in a lifetime opportunity,” Matyas, a BW junior, said in a news release.

The research performed on the “Weightless Wonder,” commonly known as the “Vomit Comet” for its nausea-inducing aerial maneuvers, involved the testing of liquid bridges. The data collected has a variety of real-world applications from mechanical bridge stability to the healing of spinal cords injuries.

Matyas explained the experience of weightlessness this way: “First, the plane executes a 2G dive, which makes you feel like you are weighed down to the sides of the plane. It is such a strong force you almost do not want to move! And then all of the sudden, you look around and people are floating everywhere inside the cabin. I remember looking at astronaut Cady Coleman and her hair was sticking out in every direction and then I glanced quickly down at my feet and I was hovering at least 6 inches off the floor!”

In the fall, the students will share their research and “Zero G” experiences at one of the Friday-evening Open Houses sponsored by the BW Department of Physics and Astronomy.

In Matyas’ time so far at BW, she has been involved with the university’s Pre-Medical Society, and made the deans list for academic excellence. Her plans for the future are to attend medical school and later work toward a master’s degree in bioethics.