• Team departs Seattle for Houston on red-eye flight

Thursday, March 8

• Team lands in Houston and stops for a Grand Slam breakfast at Denny's
• Travels to Ellington Field at the NASA Johnson Space Center
• Checks-in for Reduced Gravity Student Flight Opportunities Program (RGSFOP)
• Unpacks equipment and starts hardware setup in the hangar
• Tacoma News Tribune reporter, Kim Eckert, attends journalist briefing
• Team meets UW alum and astronaut Bonnie Dunbar
• Cajun BBQ hosted by Boeing
• Team checks-in at Casa del Mar, a Galveston Island hotel on the Gulf. Ryan reports that the pool is cold.

Friday, March 9

• Physiological Classroom Training
• Altitude Chamber Training
• Team tests equipment and discovers television monitor (to be used during flight) has broken during shipment.
• Team returns to Casa del Mar and fires up the "Bar-B" with the UW Microgravity Sonochemistry Team

Saturday, March 10

• Team buys new television monitor and works on equipment set-up.

Sunday, March 11

• Team spends day relaxing. Tomsic and Derrick watch "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon."

Monday, March 12

• Altitude Chamber Training.
• Physiological Trainer session which simulates high altitude. Team experiences 24,000 foot elevation in the altitude chamber. Once at 24,000 feet, each team member must take off their oxygen mask and fill out a simple questionnaire. Team members experience dizziness, inability to concentrate and lack of focus due to high altitude conditions.
• After the Physiological Trainer session, each member receives a card to carry that evening that reads: "Emergency Data Card. NASA. Hazardous duty. Notify JSC NASA Houston immediately. Ask for Duty Medical Officer. This individual participates in high-low pressure chamber activity and may be subject to delayed reaction of decompression sickness. Symptoms: severe headache, visual disturbance, partial paralysis, collapse and disorientation. Do not use narcotics or respiratory suppressers."
• Equipment upload finished and inspected by NASA Review Board for safety and stability during flight.
• TEAM IS APPROVED FOR THURSDAY AND FRIDAY FLIGHTS!

Tuesday, March 13

• Flight Day 1 - Flight Group A
• Astronaut lectures
• Job Fair
• Rumor has it that on the flight today, one student missed his airsick back, leaving a "blob" of vomit floating in the cabin. That is, until the plane came over the parabola, when it splattered throughout the plane. Towels were issued, however over 3/4 of the students became air sick.

Wednesday, March 14

• Flight Day 2 - Flight Group A
• Astronaut lectures
• No reports of air sickness on this flight!
• Meet Shannon Melton, Medical Operations Advanced Projects, from Wiley Laboratory. Melton took the team on a tour of her Houston lab, where she conducts ultrasound experiments.
• Team loads equipment on to plane and prepares for first flight tomorrow.
• A huge storm moves through the south and Gulf states. Galveston Island is hit with thunder, lightning, heavy rain and winds up to 50 knots.

Thursday, March 15

• Flight Day 1 - Flight Group B: Tomsic and Derrick fly
• "It was really, really wild!" (Tomsic's description of the flight)
• The flight: Team arrives at Ellington Field at 6:30 a.m. and begins final equipment set-up and testing. Tomsic and Derrick go through NASA flight briefing from 7:30 - 9:00. Anti-nausea medication (Scop-Dex, a mixture of scopalamine and dexadrine) is handed out to each flier. Tomsic declines the medicine, citing his years on a Navy submarine in heavy seas (including Hurricane Iniki) and not becoming sick. At 9:15, the fliers board the plane and strap themselves into seats. "We flew less than 10 to 15 minutes before the parabolas started," said Tomsic.
• The fliers experienced exactly 40 parabolas: 30 parabolas at zero-g, 5 parabolas at lunar-g (one-sixth-g) and 5 parabolas at martian-g (one-third-g). Each zero-g parabola lasted about 25 seconds ("It seemed a lot shorter than that on the airplane," said Tomsic). As the plane pulls out of the parabola dive and starts an ascent, the fliers experienced about 40 seconds of 2-g. Tomsic stood for two of the 2-g parabolas, where he weighed twice as much as on earth for 40 seconds. "It makes you feel really chubby at 2-g!"
• Tomsic and Derrick downlink from the plane to Ollos, White and Eckert back at Ellington Field during the flight.
• Amazingly enough, neither Tomsic nor Derrick were sick. In fact, it wasn't until the end of the flight when the flight officer (!) was the first to experience airsickness and had to return to his seat.
• The experiment: Preliminary results show the experiment a success! First, the team was able to easily see a shift in the kidney/liver interface. "The organs definitely moved!" exclaimed Tomsic. Also, Tomsic and Derrick were able to see urinary jet action in the bladder with a Doppler setting on the SonoSite, a secondary experiment for the Team. After returning to UW, they will review the data with APL faculty, the organs definitely moved, will review, kidney/liver interface shifted, data will be analyzed.

Friday, March 16

• Flight Day 2 - Flight Group B: White and Ollos scheduled to fly, accompanied by journalist Kim Eckert.
• Scheduleis similar to previous day. Ollos, White and Eckert will downlink with Tomsic and Derrick back at Ellington Field.
• Again, the other half of the team fly 40 parabolas. "There is no up. There is no down. When you hit 0-g, you just start to float and there is no 'down'," said Ollos. Journalist Eckert made it through the flight fine, experiencing no air sickness (a present for her 30th birthday, perhaps?) Ollos and White were joined by a medical flight officer, who showed great interest in their experiment and helped the team when first Ollos, then White experienced air sickness. "I just threw up, then I felt better and kept working," said Ollos, who was able to return to the experiment. White, however, was too ill to continue the experiment after the third set of parabolas (parabolas are done in sets of ten). She went back to her seat for the duration of the flight.
• Pack up equipment and prepare for shipment to Seattle.

Saturday, March 17

• Contingency flight day - reserved in case regular flight plans are delayed.

Sunday, March 18

Monday, March 19

• Team flies from Houston to Seattle