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Product Name: Brooks Air Force Base Centrifuge Facility (Armstrong Laboratory)

Product Description

As you might imagine, it takes quite a bit of accleration to get from ground level and stationary on the launch pad, to 65 nautical miles altitude and an orbital velocity of 17,500 miles per hour in just eight and a half minutes. While we spend hours and hours of training in the SMS, simulating launch conditions with similar motion, vibrations and sounds, it cannot replicate the "G-profile" of a real launch. So the G's don't come as a surprise to first-time Shuttle flyers (there's 5 of us on STS-90), they fly out to San Antonio and the Brooks Air Force Base centrifuge. It's an invaluable lesson to feel the G's and evaluate one's reach and visibilty on the way "uphill" to orbit. Trying to lift your arm to reach an overhead switch in the SMS in shirt sleeves is far easier than trying to do this just prior to Main Engine Cut-Off (MECO), when your body is experiencing three times the force of gravity. The acceleration is felt directly through the chest, so many astronauts describe the G's during launch "as if a Gorilla was sitting on my chest!" A Shuttle launch is broken down into two parts: first stage and second stage. First stage refers to flight right off of the launch pad, when the two Solid Rocket Boosters (SRBs) are firing. Second stage refers to flight from SRB separation (2 minutes into the flight) all the way out to MECO (8.5 minutes into the flight). In first stage the crew experiences not much more than 2 G's, followed by a sharp drop-off after SRB separation. The G's then build back up to 3 G's about a minute before MECO. Although not painful, it is a bit more work to breathe under 3 G's, and the rapid switch throws the crew is accustomed to performing in the SMS are demonstrated to be more difficult.