As my arms lift from my sides, and the rest of my body follows suit toward the ceiling of a modified Boeing 727—next to scientists, astronauts, engineers and activists—I think, “How did I get here?”
I’ve been enamored with space since I saw the Northern Lights in my backyard in fifth grade (a rare occurrence in the suburbs of Minneapolis, where I’m from). But I don’t have a master’s degree in a STEM field — such as engineering, physics or mathematics — which would traditionally grant me access to an event like this. Do journalists and musicians get tickets to experience zero-gravity if they’re not paying thousands of dollars? Probably not, right?
And yet, here I am, off the coast of Long Beach, CA, twirling around, bumping into people mid-air, and laughing with giddy abandon. It’s between 20 and 30 seconds of zero-gravity bliss, followed by a minute of hypergravity, holding stock-still on the white padded floor of the plane.
“Don’t turn your head back and forth when you’re lying on the floor,” one of the flight attendants warned. I should have listened because, despite taking Dramamine and Pepcid AC, rubbing Vicks VapoRub on the insides of my wrists and chewing ginger gum, I was one of the unfortunate and rare few to get motion sick.
I am not the kind of thrill-seeking person who loves extreme sports like skydiving, so during zero-gravity training at the airport on the morning of June 1, 2025, when I learned that the plane’s captain, Marcos Valdez, uses the call sign “Taco Loco,” I started questioning my life choices.
Valdez and his crew took us on 15 parabolic arcs in free air space — flying up to 35,000 feet, down to 19,000 and back up again. After two parabolas experiencing lunar gravity (one-sixth of Earth’s gravity) and a few in zero gravity, I start figuring out what to do with myself. It’s not like we could steer ourselves. We ran into each other a lot. But by pushing off with my feet once zero gravity kicked in, I attempted to pull off “the Superman” and “the hamster wheel” — the latter of which entailed crawling up the side of the plane, across the ceiling and back down again (more like a cockroach than a hamster).
Why zero gravity?
There’s a fair amount of criticism waged against space tourism, including zero-gravity and suborbital flights. But there’s more to it than publicity stunts catering to pop stars and the rich and famous. The Zero-G Corporation, in partnership with NASA, has flown more than 2,300 research flights exploring the effects of microgravity on stem-cell research, bioprinting human organs, in-space manufacturing, materials science and other scientific endeavors in zero-G, Lunar gravity, and Martian gravity (one-third of Earth’s gravity).
In partnership with the Zero-G Corporation, Space for Humanity — a nonprofit dedicated to democratizing space exploration — organized the “Fly With Me in Zero-G” contest to uplift smart, ambitious people with little means of going to space.
It brought together “space mentees”— from Nicaragua, Mexico, Paraguay, Canada and elsewhere — who, as children, didn’t imagine going to space was a remote possibility. A couple mentees hail from countries without established space programs that launch satellites and astronauts. But growing up, they saw the stars and began to dream that space could one day be accessible to them.
Through the Zero-G contest, a diverse group of trailblazers and Space for Humanity “space mentors” made the dream more tangible. Mentors included Sian Proctor (a geoscientist, artist, poet and the first black woman to pilot a spacecraft), Amanda Nguyen (the first Vietnamese woman in space and a Nobel Peace Prize–nominated civil-rights activist), Katya Echazarreta (an electrical engineer on five NASA missions and first Mexican women in space), Netflix series host Emily Calandrelli (“The Space Gal,”) and Trace Dominguez (host of the PBS show, Star Gazers).
Proctor once sought to become an astronaut through traditional STEM means and was a finalist in the 2009 NASA Astronaut Program. “I got down to that yes/no phone call, and it was that heartbreaking no,” she said. But she didn’t give up and ultimately earned a seat on a SpaceX’s Inspiration4 flight through her art — namely a poem called “Space2Inspire.”
Diversity in the aerospace industry
For the contest, the mentors were paired with mentees and kindred spirits. Proctor’s mentee, Geraldinn Barahona from Guatemala, has a similar passion for the blending of art and science. She’s currently an agronomic engineer, aiming to use microgravity research for sustainable farming that mitigates hunger and climate change. She’s also an artist and wrote a poem with Dr. Proctor in anticipation of the zero-gravity flight.
Other mentees included Lauren “Vic” Paulson, who once lived in crisis housing and depended on a food bank for her meals while studying at Georgia Institute of Technology. She has since created a path for herself as an aerospace engineer and is currently a PhD candidate and Pathways intern at NASA, helping design sustainable habitats that may one day house astronauts.
Meanwhile, using computational thermodynamics, Mexican electrical engineer Eduardo Canul researches advanced materials affected by radiation and microgravity. Nicaraguan refugee Roxy Williams leads a project transforming astronaut recruitment practices, once led a team designing human settlements on the Moon and Mars, and was recently included on Forbes’ “30 Under 30 Latin America” list. Alma Irala taught math to women in Paraguayan prisons (at the young age of 17), and as the cofounder of Lunion Innovations, is sending an experiment to the International Space Station in 2026.
Primary school teachers Samuel Carlos (based in Mexico) and Melissa Tackett (based in Missouri) inspire kids to think big about space, STEM and innovation. Guadalupe “Montse” Méndez, who grew up in Mexico as part of the Indigenous Mazatec culture, is an activist who plans on using her law degree to practice as an aerospace attorney and pave the way for more inclusivity in space.
Yemeni pharmaceutical scientist Khuloud Shibani — based in Ottawa, Canada — has a popular science blog in Arabic, inspiring audiences outside of the United States to pursue careers in science and aerospace. “I didn’t grow up thinking that going to space is possible,” Shibani said. “Then I watched Inspiration4 and Dr. Sian Proctor going to space, and I realized, ‘Maybe I can do it, too?’”
The key commonality among the nine mentees is that none have been deterred by adversity. They keep pushing forward. “If someone has told you that you don’t belong, you do,” Paulson said.
Antonio Peronace, Executive Director at Space for Humanity, believes that making space accessible to all is the key to advancing the aerospace industry. When people question the value of bringing people from various backgrounds and interests together to fly on zero-G and suborbital flights, Peronace has an unwavering point of view.
“The value is that they’re truly smashing an atmospheric ceiling and becoming a symbol for young people,” he said. “If you’re questioning the value, it might be because you’re a straight white person who has seen a bunch of straight white people in space for 60 years. The difference is that these are now beacons, icons and role models for others, and if you have a kid who would otherwise dismiss the dream of being an astronaut or astrophysicist, that could be the difference between them not giving up and saying, ‘I’m going to do it!’”
Gravity-defying perspective
Another benefit of zero-G flights — aside from contributing to scientific research and opening doors for underrepresented people — is that they encourage new perspectives, critical thinking and creativity, similar to the overview effect astronauts experience in suborbital space.
According to one of my floating partners, Ari Eisenstat (an instructor of human rights, space exploration and astrobiology at the University of Hawaii at Manoa), experiencing zero gravity helps people question their assumptions about reality. He compared it to Greek philosopher Plato’s allegory of prisoners chained inside a cave, who have no concept of life outside of their narrow existence.
“The first time getting to do a zero-gravity flight, I think about Plato’s cave and this idea of living in the illusion, that we exist in this one-G environment,” he said. “But really, the natural state of the universe is in zero-G.”
Awe-inspiring moments in zero gravity create new realms of possibility for space exploration. By making it more accessible and bringing the next generation of supersmart astronauts, aerospace engineers, materials engineers, space communicators and aerospace attorneys onboard — no matter their humble circumstances or where they come from in the world — it empowers the advancement and endurance of life on Earth and beyond.
A veteran journalist and editor, Kylee Swenson Gordon is a polyglot of storytelling across a wide range of industries and topics, including aerospace, architecture, construction, biology, manufacturing, music, film, emerging technology and sustainability. As the Director of Content Development & Owned Media at Autodesk, she led a global team creating content for the Webby Award–winning thought leadership publication Design & Make with Autodesk.
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