WIKIARCHIVES.SPACE

Astronaut C. Gordon Fullerton, STS-3 pilot, fully suited, gets a preview of what it might be like in space during a flight aboard NASA's KC-135 "zero-gravity" aircraft. A special parabolic pattern flown the aircraft provides short periods of weightlessness. Fullerton's suit is an Extravehicular Mobility Unit (EMU), used by astronauts when leaving the shirt-sleeve environment of their shuttle orbiter to go outside perform tasks in space. There are no such EVA plans on STS-3, but crew members are trained in this area in the event of the necessity to perform chores in space that for some reason or other can't be done remotely. The astronaut has just donned his suit during a parabola and now takes the opportunity to float around in the absence of gravity.