Tomorrow or Wednesday, Kephart and three other Rowan engineering students are due to take off from the NASA-Johnson Space Flight Center in Houston, and run an experiment they spent months building, testing and rebuilding as they dealt with a host of complications. It is one of seven experiments that will be done on the plane.
It will measure the way bubbles form in boiling water.
Boiling water may sound boring, but in zero-g (microgravity, for purists) bubbles should behave in strange and alien ways. The students' setup, which includes a hot wire, may say something about cooling electronic equipment in space.
Cooling is critical for powerful electronic devices, which could make their way onto future space missions. Such devices can be cooled more efficiently by fluid than by air.
"In high school, I got interested in the whole idea of space," said Kephart, who is confident he will not be too nauseous during the weightless periods to run the experiment. "I'm really into commercializing space," said the 22-year-old from Tabernacle, who had a ready answer to any question involving the space program of which he plans to be part.
The KC-135 plane was long restricted to astronauts and professional NASA scientists, though one notable exception was made for Tom Hanks and fellow actors who used the plane to film many of the weightless scenes for the 1995 movie Apollo 13.
That changed in 1998, when NASA routinely began allowing students to compete for the chance to fly an experiment.
NASA's aim was to encourage talented young engineers and scientists to apply their skills to the space program. Besides, the agency might benefit from one of their experiments.
The plane, a military cousin of the Boeing 707, doesn't escape gravity by flying high. (The space shuttle flies 186 miles above the ground at a speed of 17,400 m.p.h. to get into orbit - far beyond the capabilities of an airplane.)
