JOHNSON SPACE CENTER, HOUSTON, March, 2001 -- Were all familiar with scenes of astronauts gliding through Space Station Alpha. But precious few really know what its like to hang in midair, to float up and lie on the ceiling. Every year, NASA expands the microgravity club by inviting teams of students -- and a few lucky journalists -- to fly aboard the KC-135, nicknamed "The Weightless Wonder." This year, I was one such journalist.[inset]

NASA began flying airborne microgravity missions in 1959. Based at Ellington Field in Houston, Texas, NASA pilots have accumulated over 80,000 "parabolas" -- a term that describes the shape of the planes trajectory. "Weightless Wonder 5," NASAs fifth such airplane, is actually a military version of the Boeing 707.

As the KC-135 goes through its motions, students in NASAs Reduced Gravity Student Campaign tend to their experiments. Students from over 40 colleges and universities around the country participated in this years spring campaign.

My team consisted of four aerospace engineering majors from the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta. They studied how sound can be used to shape raw materials in space.

"With sound you can build all the primary parts for a space station," said flight team member Justin Hausaman. "The curved walls, long trusses, the paneling...we can build almost an entire station with the parts we can form in that box."

Making up the Georgia Tech Team were Hausaman, team leader Adam Coker, structures expert Ted Smith and freshman Ken Franklin. None had flown in the KC-135 before.

Their experiment is an updated version of previous Georgia Tech micro-G research. Adam Coker and crew spent a year and a half shrinking it to the size of a shoebox, and automating it. Their box generated a range of sound frequencies, recorded its own data and even switched itself off between parabolas. NASA may include their device on a space shuttle student experiment module.

Before we flew, however, we all had to pass a course in flight physiology, as well as complete an altitude chamber run at NASAs Sonny Carter Training Facility. Early one morning, NASA instructors taught us about the causes and effects of hypoxia -- the oxygen deprivation the brain suffers at high altitudes. Later, we experienced these effects first-hand by going through an altitude chamber flight.

Plugging in our fitted oxygen masks, we sat side by side in the small chamber. After a half an hour of "pre-breathing" pure oxygen, we shot up to the air-pressure equivalent of 25,000 feet (7,620 meters). We took off our masks and basked in an oxygen-depleted high for five minutes. Two guys across from me got giggly. We attempted math problems and other tasks. We listed our symptoms. After five minutes, Ken Franklin looked like he was about to pass out.

For me, everything got a little brighter. I didnt feel giggly, but my heart raced and my palms got sweaty. At the end, I thought I could have gone on longer. Thats the danger. For some, hypoxia sneaks up from behind. And because safety is the primary concern on the KC-135, the instructors made sure that we knew how to react in an emergency.

The experiments would fly for two days. Flight teams were divided into two pairs, with one pair flying each day. Adam Coker and Ted Smith flew the first day. Justin Hausaman, Ken Franklin and I flew the next.

During the first run, we watched downlinked video of Adam, Ted and the others running their experiments. Most worked fine. Others needed adjustments. Because they had designed their hardware to run mostly on its own, the Georgia Tech Team had plenty of time to float and enjoy.

The next day, Justin, Ken and I climbed aboard. I couldnt wait to get up there. Justin, a longtime martial artist sporting a crew cut, quietly kept his enthusiasm to himself. The only one who seemed even more excited than me was Ken, the newbie.

"I never expected to have gotten involved in something like this, especially so early in college," said Ken. "I really want to go into space one way or another. Whether I get into space as a tourist, or I if get into space as an astronaut, well just have to wait and see."

Language simply cant describe how it feels to float without any support at all. To be completely free of gravity is at once exhilarating and disconcerting. After a lifetime of feeling the pull of gravity, its absence was a little unnerving. Movement at first was even more awkward. While I could easily push off in any direction, no amount of twisting or kicking changed that direction. After awhile, though, moving in zero gravity became almost second nature.

After 30 parabolas, though, Justin and I opted to hold the floor down while Ken -- the newbie --spent the lunar- and Martian-G simulations bouncing around as if hed done this all his life.

The flight went by too quickly. After landing, the Georgia Tech team packed up and headed on home. For the vast majority of students, this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. NASA hopes that giving these bright young engineers a taste of what astronauts experience may steer them toward careers in aerospace.

"We're encouraging the next generation of technical people," says Domenic Del Rosso. "We build some amazing hardware, but it's people that build it, and if we don't have the sharp technical people to do that, we won't be around that much longer."

Thanks to NASAs reduced-gravity student campaigns, Americas technical whiz-kids will hopefully find that space is right where they want to be.