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Research Project Number 33 was approved for flight by NASA, through the 1998 NASA Reduced Gravity Student Flight Program, a project of the Texas Space Grant Consortia. This project was founded in 1988 by Frank Pietronigro, a San Francisco Bay Area interdisciplinary artist. Research Project Number 33 was integrated into a San Francisco Art Institute 1998 Directed Studies science class, lead by Peter Richards and Tom Humphrey, Faculty Advisors to the artists flight team. Other flight team members included: Elizabeth Allbee Abascal, Clovis Blackwell and Kris Shapiro. Creative investigations which integrated traditional scientific research methodologies were flown by the artists aboard NASA's KC135 jet on April 3 and 4, 1998, from NASA Johnson Space Center's Ellington Field. A microgravity environment was achieved as the jet flew 42 roller-coaster like parabolic maneuvers, 25,000 feet above the Gulf of Mexico, which resulted in a series of 20-25 second intervals of weightlessness in which the artists worked. Some of the scientific issues explored by the artists flight team included collisions, fluid dynamics and angular momentum exchange. Artistic elements included video, choreography, drawing, dance, filmmaking and the extension of the concept of "action painting" by eliminating the canvas and projecting paint directly into a space surrounding the artist's body. It is our project hypothesis that creativity when bridged with analytic activities of the scientists will enrich the quality of life for space travelers engaged in integrated hemispheric processes. |
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