[Palomine]

Saw this last night; according to TVguide.com, it next airs in my area (yours may be different) on:

KCET 6: Sunday, October 18 at 5pm

KLCS 3: Monday, October 26 at 9pm

...as well as several other broadcast dates during October on the higher-numbered PBS stations (238 in SoCal). You can search whatever you normally use for local airings of "Nova: Hubble's Amazing Rescue".

I mention this because the show (which is interesting in itself, chronicling the most recent 12-day Shuttle repair mission to our orbiting observatory) reminded me about the reality of breasts in zero gravity. Long a staple of the racier bits of Science Fiction fanservice, the idea of breasts in the weightlessness of space has actually been observable in reality for quite a few years now: ever since female astronauts have been making regular trips on Shuttles both with and without stops at the International Space Station.

During the mission detailed in this episode of Nova, the mission specialist who operated the robotic arm in the Shuttle's payload area was a cute brunette astronaut named Megan McArthur. She had that appealing (to me) somewhat mousy, bookish look (not surprising, considering the competition to become an astronaut is surely intellectually fierce and gals who look like Sofia Vergara and Erica Rose Campbell generally choose other, perhaps less rigorous career paths ) and reminded me a bit of that crazy 'runaway bride' lady (aka Jennifer Wilbanks) who bailed on her own upcoming wedding a few years back: you remember the one that the tabloid media covered 24/7 for weeks... like her, but without the weird bugged-out eyes and implants. While she's no supermodel by any stretch of the imagination, if you're genuinely turned on by smart women, you might like her too. Anyway, after one of the five repair spacewalks, she poses for a photo with two of her colleagues... she's wearing a light green top and happily, she fills it out pretty well.

Let me stress that it was a VERY brief clip (or perhaps even a still image?) that was on screen for just a moment. Also, as they were posing for a photo, no one (and no things) were moving around much. However, as it WAS actual imagery of breasts in zero G I thought I'd mention it: she was kinda cute and had a decent figure (for real life as opposed to porn or **29** victims of over-the-top cosmetic surgery).

The PBS.org site doesn't have this recent Nova viewable online (yet) and a brief google didn't turn up another source for it (though I didn't even check Youtube yet). The clip I referred to appears ROUGHLY about 40 minutes into the program, possibly following the third spacewalk. If I manage to record it next time it's on, I'll try to make a post/cap... again: it's not EPIC by any standard but she is an attractive (and undoubtedly very smart) woman wearing regular clothes (vs a spacesuit) in a weightless environment. I'm sure SOME of you might find it to be of interest.

Side note: Seeing this last night, I was reminded of a longer clip I saw on some other show (maybe Nova also?) in which another female astronaut was wearing a blue polo shirt (I think) and using some sort of exercise equipment in a zero-G environment... perhaps it was something about the Space Station... I'm really not sure. I'm pretty sure she was a brunette (not a lot of blonde astronauts... you can make up your own joke here ) with hair in a pony tail and *maybe* wearing glasses... I'm more than a little foggy on the details... it was at least a year ago. I do recall that the clip was long enough to include some floating motion and I'm fairly sure that at the time, I noticed what appeared as though it might have been just a bit of zero gravity-enhanced motion beneath her shirt. Yes, it's possible that I merely imagined the whole thing, or that my memory of it has itself become 'enhanced' over time, but I just thought I'd mention this one too since if there's any place that someone else might know/remember it, it'd be here, in the BEA Forum. If anyone actually manages to point to the clip I'm recalling: of the zero-G exercise woman... I'd be truly appreciative AND impressed!

I'll edit this post to include any additional info or pix I come across.

Added later: though I didn't find the clip, I did find plenty of still photos of her, including some taken inside the orbiting Shuttle when she's wearing the green top.

Added STILL later: I found a small, lowrez .mov that is essentially similar to the bit on Nova yesterday: http://sm4.gsfc.nasa.gov/art/day6/sts125_fdh06_05.mov ...she appears for about 10 seconds starting at the 1:43 mark into the 2.3meg QT movie. Somewhere, someplace online there are surely websites dedicated to this very subject by now: zero-G jubblies.

[Q_BE]

Now to get Chelsea, Keisha, and as many other big-boob models as possible into space!

Esoterically, I wonder what the record is for largest breasts in zero gravity?

Q-"Would big boobs even survive the liftoff?"-BE

EDIT: Here's a science forum's take on the subject:
Zero Gravity and Breasts
Here's a hippies' forum (yes, an online forum for people who wear tie-dye and hemp) and their...predictable take on toplessness in space:
Would you go topless in zero gravity?
Here's a professional pilots' forum (reasonably enough, considering the subject matter) and their take:
Breasts in Space

This topic cracks me up.

[pedonbio]

Pal, someday we will meet in real life, so we can discuss the stunning co-evolution of sci-fi and porn. I knew the late Larry Shaw in his last couple of years in porn. He won a Hugo in 1985, mostly for his sci-fi work in the 1940s and 50s.

[Palomine]

Attached is a brief excerpt reprinted in a magazine from a book published recently. Nothing in it is particularly salacious, despite a terse mention that in zero gravity (as simulated on Nasa's '**113** Comet') "breasts don't sag". I'm just putting it here for any fellow geeks who might find it of interest.

PS: strictly PG: here's a short Youtube vid of weightless water balloons too: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7fEHYkGxd0&feature=related and at the end of this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coX1u2_KBsQ a couple of ladies in zero-g (cute but unremarkable) are tossing a cat back and forth. It doesn't look amused.
 

[Nimrod]

Back in the early 80's I read an article in OMNI magazine that had excerpts from an interview with a female Russian cosmonaut an she recounted that her breasts took on a much more conical shape after a while in space. It was not said how long she was in space but one can assume it was long enough that some of the deleterious effects of gravity on breast tissue were lessened. I do recall her metaphor of beehives and dinner rolls.

[ROUNDandHEAVY]

Here she is looking pretty jubbly.

[11]

This thread reminds me of my favorite quote from Michael Collins (the Apollo 11 astronaut).

"Imagine a spacecraft of the future, with a crew of a thousand ladies, off for Alpha Centauri, with 2,000 breasts bobbing beautifully and quivering delightfully in response to every weightless movement . . . and I am the commander of the craft, and it is Saturday morning and time for inspection, naturally."
(from his 1974 autobiography Carrying the Fire)

[TheZookie007]

No wonder he was the one left in the orbiter

[Palomine]

Had to bump this thread to include this recent post from gOOber of Kate Upton riding the **113** Comet (I assume). Dunno if she actually went topless during the shoot.

[Sawyer90]

The company they worked with was ZeroG, flying a modified Boeing 727 airliner out of Kennedy Space Center. NASA has a contract with them now, instead of doing their own "**113** Comet"

And sadly, I don't think Kate went topless... But she seemed to take to freefall quite well, compared to some of the photographers.

[Lesbian Bob]

Low air pressure, too?

[Sawyer90]

No, 727s are pressurized to the equivalent of 8000 feet above sea level. Not enough to cause health issues, but enough to cause balloons and chip bags to noticeably inflate.