Ockels W J
Directorate of Manned Space Flight and Microgravity, European Space Agency, Noordwijk, The Netherlands.
ESA Bull. 1995 May;82:4 p..
In the last week of November 1994, a different type of parabolic flight campaign took place: For the first time, students were given the unique opportunity of experiencing weightlessness. The campaign was part of the second European Week for Scientific Culture and the main goal was to motivate and educate the students rather than to obtain pure scientific and technological results as is normally the case in 'professional' campaigns. Twenty student experiments were chosen in a Europe-wide competition and the winning student teams were invited to carry out the experiments during a series of parabolic flights. The experiments covered a wide variety of disciplines ranging from general and fluid physics to material processing, crystal growth, and technology research. The campaign was a great success, all experiments worked well and the students proved to be a serious and motivated workforce which performed well in the rather unsettling microgravity environment. By learning from each other's experiments and through the unique personal experience of weightlessness, the students have become ambassadors for microgravity research. Most importantly, they have shown that we can have confidence in the next generation to make good use of microgravity research opportunities, including the International Space Station, in the future.
1994年11月的最后一周，开展了一次不同类型的抛物线飞行活动：学生们首次获得了体验失重的独特机会。这次活动是第二届欧洲科学文化周的一部分，其主要目标是激励和教育学生，而不是像“专业”活动通常那样获取纯粹的科学技术成果。在一场全欧洲范围的竞赛中挑选出了20个学生实验项目，获胜的学生团队受邀在一系列抛物线飞行中开展这些实验。实验涵盖了广泛的学科领域，从普通物理和流体物理到材料加工、晶体生长以及技术研究。这次活动取得了巨大成功，所有实验都进展顺利，学生们证明了自己是一支认真且积极主动的队伍，在相当令人不安的微重力环境中表现出色。通过相互学习彼此的实验以及失重这一独特的个人体验，学生们成为了微重力研究的使者。最重要的是，他们表明我们可以相信下一代在未来能够充分利用微重力研究机会，包括国际空间站。
