Granting Weightless Wishes
Global Aviator - South Africa|Special Issue - October 2017

ESA participated in the Kid’s Weightless Dreams campaign organised by Novespace and Rêves de Gosse giving children with disabilities the opportunity to experience weightlessness and lunar gravity on a parabolic flight.

Granting Weightless Wishes

Eight children from five ESA member states – UK, France, Germany, Belgium, and Italy – boarded the Zero-G Airbus A310 in Bordeaux on 24 August.

In addition to experiencing weightlessness, the children were also involved in science demonstrations. These included lighting a candle, mixing liquids of different densities, playing Ping-Pong with bubbles of water and working a fidget spinner to demonstrate the effects of microgravity.

Prior to the flight, the children participated in an educational workshop organised by ESA Education to explain the experiments and demonstrations and introduce the children to the concepts of gravity.

Joining the children were ESA astronauts from their corresponding member states who have flown in space. Tim Peake (UK), Frank de Winne (BE), Maurizio Cheli (IT), Thomas Reiter (DE), Claudie Haigneré (FR) and Jean-Francois Clervoy (FR) were on board to assist and mentor the children and answer their questions.

This story is from the Special Issue - October 2017 edition of Global Aviator - South Africa.

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This story is from the Special Issue - October 2017 edition of Global Aviator - South Africa.

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