NASA astronaut demonstrates ‘hair powered’ propulsion in zero gravity

Getting around in space, is almost effortless, as NASA astronaut Karen Nyberg recently demonstrated aboard the International Space Station.

The astronaut used a single strand of her own hair to propel herself. NASA posted a video of the brief experiment online last week.

The experiment took inspiration from a conversation fellow astronaut Cady Coleman had Sandra Bullock, star of the blockbuster space thriller ''Gravity.''

Coleman helped Bullock prepare for her role as an astronaut in the film, which opened 4 October.

According to Bullock, she was particularly struck by Coleman's description of how effortlessly spacefliers could float around the orbiting lab.

Bullock told Coleman that the thing that most resonated with her was what she said about how once could take a strand of hair push off the wall with that hair, and it would propel one backwards.

Coleman, a veteran of three spaceflights, was last in space May 2011, however, Nyberg, a crew member of the International Space Station's current Expedition 37, decided to test out Coleman's assertion.

She plucked a strand of hair, held it between her two hands and pressed it against a space station handrail, and the force she applied sent her falling backward in slow motion, her white-socked feet rising as her head dipped down.

Meanwhile, Nyberg on Wednesday fielded questions from students who attended her former school in an interview in which curious kids asked everything from what she ate to how it felt to float without gravity.

She was asked by a third-grade girl during her exchange with students at the K-12 Henning School in Vining, in west-central Minnesota, at what age she decided to be an astronaut.

She said she was probably about her age when she decided. She said she was probably going to school and sitting in the same classrooms that they were using.

A second-grade boy wondered whether being in zero gravity felt like being in water to which Nyberg replied that it was a very keen observation.

She added that her preparation for space travel included underwater training.

Asked what she liked best about being in space, to which she said she liked zipping around the best, one got going around pretty fast … going around corners. … and floating all over the place. She said it was a lot, a lot of fun.

As regards her menu in space, Nyberg said the options were much like what was available on earth, as she held up a freeze-dried pouch that happened to contain her favorites, red beans and rice. She said, she liked it because it was spicy.