By Associated Press - Tuesday, March 4, 2014

EVANSTON, Ill. (AP) - Five Northwestern University students are set to ride in NASA’s zero gravity aircraft named the “Vomit Comet.”

But this won’t be purely a joy-ride for the undergraduates who were selected in nationwide NASA competition. They’ll be researching why bones become weaker in space. The team hopes that their findings will help astronauts and people with bone-related diseases.

They’ll be conducting research aboard a NASA plane that creates a weightless experience similar to space. Over the course of two days, the team will experience zero gravity 60 times. They’ll use most of the times for experiments.

Andrew Kozminski is the team’s leader. He says they’ll look at how bone cell systems act differently in zero gravity.

The experiments are set for the beginning of April at Johnson Space Center in Houston.

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