$2,950 for nothing - yet there's a line out the door

OK, so you've swum with the fishes, climbed Kilimanjaro, and gone bungee-jumping.

Now what?

Here's your next adventure: a flight in Zero-G's modified Boeing 727, named G-Force-One. Nice job with the name, say I. But I digress.

Peter Diamandis (floating just above), the company's co-founder and CEO, back in the mid-1990s co-founded the $10-million Ansari-X Prize Foundation, which is offering a $10 million prize to the first of 27 privately-funded teams to repeatedly launch a three-person spacecraft to an altitude of 62 miles, the edge of space.

In the meantime, Diamandis decided it was time to let people see what it was like to experience weightlessness.

His tricked-out plane allows each passenger to experience 20 or so 25-second periods of zero gravity, at the top of each of the series of repeated 10,000-foot roller-coaster arcs, called parabolas, flown by the plane.

Experience has shown that most people can hold their cookies for about 20 parabolas, so that's what the plane's gonna provide.

Here's L. Lynn Lunsford's story, from Tuesday's Wall Street Journal.
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No Movie, No Frequent-Flier Plan And No Gravity, Either

Since the beginning of the space age, anybody who wanted to experience weightlessness either had to be an astronaut or have connections to get a ride on the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's vaunted "Vomit Comet" jetliner, where the weightless scenes for the movie "Apollo 13" were shot.

Starting today, a company called Zero-G Corp. will begin selling rides to all comers who want to see if their stomachs have the right stuff to endure two hours on a modified Boeing 727 named G-Force-One.

Like NASA's aging research and training plane, G-Force-One will be flown through a series of 10,000-foot-high roller-coaster arcs called parabolas.

At the top of each arc the passengers become weightless and can flip, float and tumble inside a padded section of the cabin for about 25 seconds.

"For the first time, average people will be able to feel what it is like to be weightless," says Peter Diamandis, co-founder and chief executive of closely held Zero-G.

Zero-G officials initially expected to fill two trips on their plane during the first month of operation, but through advance word of mouth and selective marketing they already sold out 20 flights before the public launch of the business.

Individual tickets are $2,950 for a full day of training and the airplane ride.

It isn't without risks.

Passengers must sign forms attesting to their medical fitness.

People with certain conditions such as heart ailments as well as pregnant women won't be permitted to join in.

Those who are accepted are warned that even the toughest astronauts sometimes get sick to their stomach in zero gravity.

So far, the largest demand is coming from companies that book employee-incentive awards for corporations and "are tired of golf classics or cruises," Dr. Diamandis says.

Zero-G also has received numerous inquiries from movie studios looking to secure the plane for filming weightless scenes, he says.

Diet Rite, a unit of Cadbury Schweppes PLC's Cadbury Schweppes Americas Beverages, has signed on as Zero-G's launch sponsor to help publicize its zero-calorie, zero-caffeine soft drink.

Today, Zero-G plans to fly the first of a series of promotional flights for the soda maker from Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey; passengers will include bottlers, reporters and a few radio listeners who won call-in contests.

During the next few weeks, the plane also will be taken to Los Angeles, Dallas, Detroit, Atlanta and Fort Lauderdale, Fla., for Diet Rite promotions.

Although a ride on the aircraft might seem riskier than one on a commercial flight, the maneuvers are well within a Boeing 727's safe operating range, Boeing and the Federal Aviation Administration say.

The airplane, leased from cargo carrier Amerijet International Inc. of Fort Lauderdale, will be operated and maintained under the same basic FAA standards that apply to major commercial carriers.

Both Amerijet and Zero-G spent the past five years working with the FAA to obtain certification for the airplane and the company's operating requirements, including flying more than 1,000 parabolas.

"Because it is the first commercial operation like this, we obviously paid close attention," an FAA spokesman says.

With the exception of the promotional tour, all of Zero-G's flights are scheduled to depart from Fort Lauderdale, where the company is based, and travel through a specially allocated airspace over the Gulf of Mexico that is 100 miles long and 10,000 feet deep.

Dr. Diamandis calls the space the boundaries for "the world's largest roller coaster."

The plane has room for 27 paying passengers, and the trips will be led by a veteran astronaut.

The airplane is divided into two zones.

Passengers will start the flight buckled up in a standard cabin setting with normal airline seats.

Then, as the plane prepares to enter the parabolas, passengers will move to an empty area of the fuselage that is nearly 70 feet long and has padding on the walls, floor and ceiling.

On a typical flight, customers will experience varying degrees of weightlessness, from that likely to be felt on the moon and Mars to total lack of gravity.

NASA's modified KC-135 earned the name Vomit Comet in part because, as a research and training jet, it sometimes would go through as many as 60 parabolas during a flight.

Dr. Diamandis says Zero-G's experience has shown that most people can hold their cookies for about 20 parabolas, so Zero-G will limit most flights to that duration or less.

"The idea is for people to walk away remembering what a blast it is to be weightless," the California physician says.

The company's investors include Elon Musk, the co-founder of online payment service PayPal.

It is the latest of Dr. Diamandis's efforts to feed a growing demand among adventure travelers for space-related experiences.

He founded Zero-G in the mid-1990s, about the same time that he co-founded the $10-million Ansari X-Prize Foundation, which is holding an international competition among 27 privately funded teams who are vying to become the first to repeatedly launch a three-person spacecraft to an altitude of 62 miles, the edge of space.