Centre for Research in Earth and Space Technology

Ian P Howard

The present invention provides a method and device for producing an illusion of weightlessness. An enclosed room having walls, a floor and a ceiling defining an interior is provided. A plurality of visually polarized objects are rigidly secured to the walls, ceiling or floor to indicate an up and down direction. A user is secured into a cushioned user support member mounted in the enclosed room and rotated into the supine posture. The room is then rotated into alignment with the user's body. The room containing a rich variety of visually polarized objects having recognizable tops and bottoms still appears upright when the room and person in the support member are both rotated at an angle of 90.degree. from the upright position. The gravity sense organs in the inner ear (otolith organs) which normally indicate when the head is erect, are not powerful enough in most people to overcome the strong contradictory visual information. Also, the otolith organs produce a weaker signal when the body is supine when the body is incline back 90.degree. than when it is erect. The soft padding is used to reduce contradictory information arising from pressure sensations in the back as the user is rotated to the supine position. A tethered object such as a ball on a thread is hanging from the wall in front of the secured user so that when the room is moved into alignment with the user's body the tethered object hangs out perpendicularly to the wall. The relative movement of the tethered object with respect to the rigidly secured visually polarized objects provides visual stimuli to the user suggestive of a weightless environment.

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Thornhill, Canada

Ian P Howard