How does a zero gravity simulator used to train astronauts actually work?
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There’s three main methods to achieve this. Back in the 60s in preparation for the lunar landings they had a machine, much like the “Gravitrons” in carnivals where the astronauts were suspended from the sides by wires and stood on the walls of the spinning wheel. This didn’t simulate zero gravity but it could simulate reduced gravity, since depending on how fast it spun the centrifugal force changed. It didn’t have to spin too fast since the goal was to simulate the reduced gravity on the Moon and not stick them to the walls completely with 1G.
The second main method is the Neutral Buoyancy Lab. It’s a facility with a large [swimming pool](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutral_buoyancy_pool) which contains mockups of the International Space Station modules. The water makeup is controlled and the submerged astronauts are wearing space suits. As the name suggests, the conditions of the pool and the space suit are adjusted so that the astronaut has “neutral buoyancy”, which means that while submerged they are in an equillibrium where they do not float up or sink to the bottom. The result is a fairly accurate simulation of microgravity, which is what the proper term is for what we call “zero gravity” which is a bit of a misnomer.
The last and most prominent method is the Vomit Comet. The Vomit Comet is an airplane that’s completely emptied out inside and padded to minimize injury. The plane goes fairly high and then starts flying in paraboliv arcs, meaning they dive and then go up sharply and try to lower the nose of the aircraft slowly. Due to the built up speed if the maneuver is executed correctly then the people inside the plane experience microgravity. The maneuver is difficult to execute and each parabola in the maneuver takes about 65 seconds to complete, out of which only roughly 25 are actually in microgravity. It’s the closest we can get to simulating it but as you can understand the time windows are fairly short. Fun fact, the same technique was used for the filming of the movie Apollo 13, which posed a great challenge in terms of shooting and editing the film but the results speak for themselves. When watching the movie you’re seeing the actors in true microgravity.
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