APRIL 2016 | 35 the primary aircraft systems will work just fine as originally designed and built,” Scheuermann said. His experience redesigning commercial planes for space-related purposes didn’t end there. In January 2004, Scheuermann went to work part time for Zero Gravity Corp. to help adapt its 727 for weightlessness flights. Most alterations were to the interior, where the company installed padding for passengers that could be replaced with adaptive padding when scientific payloads need to be bolted to the floor for microgravity experimentation. The hydraulics system, which functions based on Earth’s gravity, also needed to be modified to work in weightlessness conditions, he explained. Today, Scheuermann periodically serves on the very aircraft he helped certify for zero-g flight operations, where he’s “just like any flight attendant on any airline, with the exception that we let people float around weightless as opposed to serving them drinks,” he said. Some flights involve research; others are tourist-filled. Then there are the occasional celebrity sightings, including physicist Stephen Hawking, pop culture icons Ozzy and Sharon Osbourne, and supermodel Kate Upton. After all, Boeing’s modified airplanes aren’t camera-shy. Director Ron Howard shot much of Apollo 13, his 1995 film about the aborted moon mission, on a NASA KC-135 during parabolic flight. David B. Nowell, cinematographer for the film’s weightlessness unit, said the crew and actors did 564 parabolas in the modified KC-135 to get about 90 minutes of footage. Because computerized special effects were still in their infancy, parabolic flight was the cheapest and most authentic way to film weightlessness. Add into the equation how adaptable the KC-135 platform was to meet the film crew’s needs, Nowell added, and using the Boeing airplane was a clear solution. “There was nothing that had to be completely changed,” Nowell said. “Even the electrical system was there to be used as needed— it was just a matter of tying into what they had.” • KATE.E.EVERSON@BOEING.COM Enterprise high over the California desert in 1977, then made a shallow dive and released the shuttle so it could glide back to a landing. NASA has also used another 747 for a much different mission. The Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy, or SOFIA, is a 747SP with a highly modified fuselage that transformed the commercial plane into a flying science observatory. Engineer Art Scheuermann, who has worked with Boeing since 1987, took a three-year break to work for Raytheon on the project. “You can pretty much just modify the area of the airplane associated with the new mission—such as new structure to support a telescope—and
Frontiers April 2016 Issue
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