Take weightless flight above Houston this March. Zero-G Experience/Instagram

If you were over the moon after witnessing the recent flights hauling billionaires Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson — and even final frontier fave Captain Kirk — to space, then an out-of-this-world experience launching from Houston may have you thanking your lucky stars for the chance to become a bona fide space cadet.

The Zero-G Experience, operated by privately held space entertainment and tourism company Zero Gravity Corporation, will land in Space City on March 19, giving locals the opportunity to hop aboard the FAA-approved G-Force One, a modified Boeing 727-200 that allows passengers to experience the feeling of weightlessness — without actually traveling to space.

Billed as an experience that’s like nothing on earth, the Zero-G Experience enables flyers to encounter a weightless environment in which they can “float, flip, and soar like an astronaut,” all without actually slipping the surly bonds of Earth.

According to the Zero Gravity Corp., here’s how it works: “The process starts with the aircraft flying level with the horizon at an altitude of 24,000 feet. The pilots then gradually increase the angle of the aircraft to about 45 degrees relative to the horizon until reaching an altitude of 32,000 feet. During this phase, passengers feel the pull of 1.8 Gs. Next, the plane pushes over the top of the parabolic arc and the zero-gravity phase begins. For the next 20-30 seconds, everything in the plane is weightless. Finally, the plane gently pulls out of the maneuver, allowing flyers to gradually return to the floor of the aircraft.”

The flight enables guests to experience lunar gravity (one-sixth their weight), as well as Martian gravity (one-third their weight).

And you don’t even have to be a rocket scientist to enjoy this spaced-out experience. However, from the come-back-down-to-earth reality side of things, you will have to drop a pretty penny for the once-in-a-blue-moon opportunity.

The five-hour Houston Zero-G Experience, which includes 15 parabola (gravity-free) acrobatic maneuvers, costs $8,200 per person. (People of all abilities and ages 8 and older are welcome; though those with certain medical conditions may need to get doctor approval.) The purchase price includes a Zero-G flight suit, Zero-G merch, a certificate of weightless completion, and photos and videos from the experience.

A Zero-G medical pro will also conduct a rapid COVID-19 test on all passengers prior to flight.

Houstonians can book tickets for the local flight here.

Aside from Houston, the only other Texas city the Zero-G Experience will visit is Austin, with the flight taking off from Capital City on March 20.

For more info and to watch videos of the Zero-G Experience, visit the Zero-G website.

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This article originally ran on CultureMap.

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Houston researcher builds radar to make self-driving cars safer

eyes on the road

A Rice University researcher is giving autonomous vehicles an “extra set of eyes.”

Current autonomous vehicles (AVs) can have an incomplete view of their surroundings, and challenges like pedestrian movement, low-light conditions and adverse weather only compound these visibility limitations.

Kun Woo Cho, a postdoctoral researcher in the lab of Rice professor of electrical and computer engineering Ashutosh Sabharwal, has developed EyeDAR to help address such issues and enhance the vehicles’ sensing accuracy. Her research was supported in part by the National Science Foundation.

The EyeDAR is an orange-sized, low-power, millimeter-wave radar that could be placed at streetlights and intersections. Its design was inspired by that of the human eye. Researchers envision that the low-cost sensors could help ensure that AVs always pick up on emergent obstacles, even when the vehicles are not within proper range for their onboard sensors and when visibility is limited.

“Current automotive sensor systems like cameras and lidar struggle with poor visibility such as you would encounter due to rain or fog or in low-lighting conditions,” Cho said in a news release. “Radar, on the other hand, operates reliably in all weather and lighting conditions and can even see through obstacles.”

Signals from a typical radar system scatter when they encounter an obstacle. Some of the signal is reflected back to the source, but most of it is often lost. In the case of AVs, this means that "pedestrians emerging from behind large vehicles, cars creeping forward at intersections or cyclists approaching at odd angles can easily go unnoticed," according to Rice.

EyeDAR, however, works to capture lost radar reflections, determine their direction and report them back to the AV in a sequence of 0s and 1s.

“Like blinking Morse code,” Cho added. “EyeDAR is a talking sensor⎯it is a first instance of integrating radar sensing and communication functionality in a single design.”

After testing, EyeDAR was able to resolve target directions 200 times faster than conventional radar designs.

While EyeDAR currently targets risks associated with AVs, particularly in high-traffic urban areas, researchers also believe the technology behind it could complement artificial intelligence efforts and be integrated into robots, drones and wearable platforms.

“EyeDAR is an example of what I like to call ‘analog computing,’” Cho added in the release. “Over the past two decades, people have been focusing on the digital and software side of computation, and the analog, hardware side has been lagging behind. I want to explore this overlooked analog design space.”

12 winners named at CERAWeek clean tech pitch competition in Houston

top teams

Twelve teams from around the country, including several from Houston, took home top honors at this year's Energy Venture Day and Pitch Competition at CERAWeek.

The fast-paced event, held March 25, put on by Rice Alliance, Houston Energy Transition Initiative and TEX-E, invited 36 industry startups and five Texas-based student teams focused on driving efficiency and advancements in the energy transition to present 3.5-minute pitches before investors and industry partners during CERAWeek's Agora program.

The competition is a qualifying event for the Startup World Cup, where teams compete for a $1 million investment prize.

PolyJoule won in the Track C competition and was named the overall winner of the pitch event. The Boston-based company will go on to compete in the Startup World Cup held this fall in San Francisco.

PolyJoule was spun out of MIT and is developing conductive polymer battery technology for energy storage.

Rice University's Resonant Thermal Systems won the second-place prize and $15,000 in the student track, known as TEX-E. The team's STREED solution converts high-salinity water into fresh water while recovering valuable minerals.

Teams from the University of Texas won first and second place in the TEX-E competition, bringing home $25,000 and $10,000, respectively. The student winners were:

Companies that pitched in the three industry tracts competed for non-monetary awards. Here are the companies named "most-promising" by the judges:

Track A | Industrial Efficiency & Decarbonization

Track B | Advanced Manufacturing, Materials, & Other Advanced Technologies

  • First: Licube, based in Houston
  • Second: ZettaJoule, based in Houston and Maryland
  • Third: Oleo

Track C | Innovations for Traditional Energy, Electricity, & the Grid

The teams at this year's Energy Venture Day have collectively raised $707 million in funding, according to Rice. They represent six countries and 12 states. See the full list of companies and investor groups that participated here.

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This article originally appeared on our sister site, EnergyCapitalHTX.com.