Community News

The University of Texas Medical Branch in collaboration with the National Aerospace Training and Research (NASTAR) Center in Southampton, PA, is conducting research into the safety training methods that will be used to train future suborbital spaceflight passengers. Volunteers are invited to participate in the experiment and experience a simulated suborbital spaceflight. The simulated spaceflight environment will be produced using a high-performance centrifuge-based simulator. This simulator is capable of generating high onset-offset, sustained acceleration (“G”) forces similar to those that might be experienced in high-performance aircraft or spacecraft.

If you choose to volunteer for the study, you will be trained on various aspects of suborbital spaceflight and then evaluated (via questionnaires, psychological sensors, and basic cognitive tasks) during a full-scale version of the acceleration profile. The maximum G-level you may experience is +4G_z (acceleration aligned in the head-to-toe direction, up to 4 times the force of gravity) and +6G_x (acceleration aligned in the chest-to-back direction, up to 6 times the force of gravity). We will train you on certain techniques that are commonly used to mitigate the physiological effects of G-forces. You may stop your participation at any time without reason or repercussion. There is no compensation for time, travel, or lodging associated with your participation in this experiment, though the centrifuge experience itself is free to participants. 

Benefits

• You will get to experience a hypergravity, high-fidelity, simulated space launch produced by the high-performance centrifuge simulator.
• The knowledge obtained from this research study may serve to improve future suborbital spaceflight training protocols. 

Requirements

• Must be ages 18-65 and a U.S citizen or Green Card holder.
• Must be of adequate health as determined by applicable study criteria (most medical conditions, when well-controlled, are acceptable).
• Must be able to commit to up to two full, consecutive, days of training (9am – 4:30pm). Training time is based on the training group you are assigned to and cannot be pre-selected.

If you or anyone that you know is interested in volunteering to be a research participant, please visit www.utmbamc.com/research.cfm and register for more information.