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frantically got to work on a range of activities and
experiments. I hovered in the middle of the cabin, toes
down, hair up, and took in the scene. Up by the cock-
pit, a square-jawed jock raced to strap himself into a
vertical rowing machine. Not far away, a waifish young
woman sculpted spidery 3D figures in midair with a
hot glue gun, sucking on her lip piercing with a look of
deep concentration. Behind me, toward the rear of the
fuselage, the world’s first musical instrument designed
exclusively for performance in microgravity—a sort
of metallic octopus called the Telemetron—emitted
plaintive digital chimes as it spun. A woman wearing a
seahorse-inspired robotic tail rotated serenely, twirl-
ing around its flexible ballast like a stripper on a pole.
A few feet away from where I hung, Cady Coleman, a
former NASA astronaut with six months of spaceflight
experience, took a nostalgic joyride, somersaulting and
gliding like a pro. Nearby, silkworms in varying stages
of development bounced gently in the hammock of
their freshly woven cocoons, largely unnoticed inside a
small acrylic box. I struggled to keep hold of my pencil
and notebook as I watched industrial designer Maggie
Coblentz, immaculately costumed in a Ziggy Stardust–
inspired white jumpsuit and matching go-go boots,
chase down and swallow a handful of boba pearls, nib-
bling at them like a goldfish.
The flight had been chartered by Ariel Ekblaw,
the intimidatingly accomplished founder of the MIT
Media Lab’s Space Exploration Initiative. Ekblaw has a
round face, long curls, and the earnest demeanor that
comes with being a Girl Scout Gold Award winner and
high school valedictorian. Her mother set the bar for
overachievement in a male-dominated field: She was
a reservist instructor in the US Air Force back when
female trainers were unheard of, and she would have
flown fighter jets if women had been allowed to at the
time. But it was Ekblaw’s father, a fighter pilot himself,
who kindled her obsession with space. He was a sci-fi
buff, and Ekblaw grew up devouring his paperback
copies of Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein. She also
watched Star Trek: The Next Generation at a forma-
tive age, imprinting on its impossibly optimistic vision
of the future. After majoring in physics, math, and phi-
losophy as an undergrad, she earned a master’s degree
in blockchain research. Then, four years ago, at the age
of 23, she decided to return to her first love.
The Space Exploration Initiative’s goal is to bring
together “artists, scientists, engineers, and designers
to build a real-life Starfleet Academy.” Ekblaw and her
expanding team of more than 50 collaborators are get-
ting ready for the day when humanity becomes a space-
native civilization, as comfortable in the cosmos as we
have been on Earth. “People say we’re putting the cart
before the horse,” Ekblaw concedes. “But the complex-
ities of space are such that we really should be at least
designing the cart while the horse is being prepared.”
As the billionaire rocket bros never tire of reminding
T
TO ANYONE WHO happened to be looking up that morn-
ing, perhaps from the deck of a boat off the coast of
Portsmouth, New Hampshire, the plane would have
appeared to be on an extremely alarming trajectory.
It rocketed into the cloudless late-summer sky at a
45-degree angle, slowed momentarily and leveled out,
then nosed down toward the ocean, plunging 17,000
vertical feet in a matter of seconds. At the last moment,
it leveled out again and began another climb, looking for
all the world as though it were being piloted by a hope-
lessly indecisive hijacker.
Onboard the plane, the mood was euphoric and a
little hysterical. The main cabin had been converted
into a kind of padded cell, lined with soft white tiles
in lieu of seats and overhead bins. Two dozen passen-
gers, clad in blue jumpsuits, lay on their backs on the
floor. As the plane neared the crest of its first roller-
coaster wave, a member of the flight crew got on the PA.
“Pushing over, slow and easy,” he shouted over the roar
of the engines. “Release!” Moments before he uttered
that final word, the passengers began to levitate. Their
feet, hands, and hair lifted first, then their bodies, arms
dog-paddling and legs kicking ineffectually as they gig-
gled and grinned like fools for a fleeting, floating instant.
“Feet down, coming out,” the crew member said 20 sec-
onds later. The passengers hit the floor ass first and lay
spread-eagled, staring at the ceiling.
The plane flew 20 parabolic arcs that day, for a total
of around six minutes of weightlessness. Each time
gravity loosened its grip, the blue-suited occupants
