Banana Don’s Slice of Americana – Kate Upton In Space

According to a post from your friend and mine - Stephanie McCoy - Detroit Tiger pitcher Justin Verlander and supermodel Kate Upton may be dating...again. I say, good for them! What good is being a Cy Young Award winner and/or a Sports Illustrated swimsuit model if you can't get together with somebody who understands you and play some miniature golf? Or fly to Paris for lunch. Or whatever the beautiful people do.

Speaking of Michigan's own Kate Upton, have you seen the rumors about where she posed for the upcoming Swimsuit Issue? She was ...in SPACE!

Well, not really in outer-space, but weightless, in simulated space. According to pagesix.com:

"Sources tell us Upton was shot in a zero-gravity chamber in a silver swimsuit."

Here comes the SCIENCE! There are no "zero gravity chambers". But there are airplanes that you can fly aboard that will simulate zero gravity. NASA uses one to train astronauts. Here's the website for one. 

I'm assuming that Kate went aboard one of these aircraft for her photo shoot. Once you're airborne,and at altitude, the pilot makes the aircraft climb at a steep angle and then pitches the aircraft's nose down for several seconds, making EVERYTHING in the aircraft weightless until the dive angle gets too steep and the airplane levels off, or climbs back up to do it again. They filmed the weightless scenes for the "Apollo 13" movie in one of these planes.

And let me just say, this can be done safely in almost all aircraft. For at least a few seconds. Trust me.

I leave you with a photo of Ms Upton looking up the term "parabola".