HardwareGeeks.com - Blast off With Norton

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Posted by: Michael on Tue, Feb 24th, 2009

This past weekend, Symantec took the winners of the Blast off With Norton Contest to Orlando, Florida for their ZeroG flight, including Jacob Lewis who won his trip via HardwareGeeks. I also was invited along and I have to tell you it was one hell of a ride.

Winners of the contest from around the world arrived in Orlando on February 19th or 20th depending on how far away they were, the flight itself took place on the 21st in Titusville, FL.

On the day of the flight everyone seemed anxious to get to the airport and experience weightlessness, the bus ride over took us through 13 or so toll booths and as each passed the bus got quieter and quieter as the anticipation grew.

Finally from the distance you could see the Zero G plane, and maybe it was just me but I heard people gasp at the site, when we pulled into the airport we couldn’t wait to get off the bus but we had to wait for a bit while they readied things in the terminal.

After getting off the bus we were checked in,given flight suits and split up into 3 groups. We were then forced to watch a safety video that probably ran 25 minutes but it seemed like hours, after it was over no one got up but as I looked around everyone had a look of excitement in their face waiting to be told to head to the plane.

Finally we were told to go through security and headed to the plane where they took a group picture.

Then we boarded the plane and got into our seats, when everyone was onboard we began to taxi and finally made it to the runway, and the plane took off. The take off was odd, it felt as the nose of the plane was in the air the entire time

Symantec_Zero_G_R_Holland_Y0U9103.jpg

About 15 minutes into the flight the fun began. Just watch the video below

After about fifteen 30-second bouts with weightlessness it all ended, and we returned to our seats feeling a bit heavy, some of us also a little nauseous. I had a little headache but it wasn’t that bad until the Pilot landed. Never in my life had I had such a rough landing. A few people actually complained on the tarmac about the landing. I think the odd take off and the hard landing had had to do with the fact the runway was so small, although I do not know that for a fact.

When we finally made it back into the terminal, everyone gathered around Cecilia from Symantec as she and some Third Party Guy (I forget his name) selected a winner for the Sub Orbital Flight, the winner from Chile was a guy named Lyon. He was excited and took a flag of Chile and ran around the tarmac to celebrate.

From some research I did, it would seem that he would be the first man in space from Chile, during dinner following the flight he told me he has already quit his job as a professor of philosophy in Chile and will try to remain in the US and get on the Spanish show “Sabado Gigante”.

At dinner I also found something out that was kind of cool, Dave Cole from Symantec sat at my table and asked the contest winners how they won the contest. Jacob Lewis said through us, but also a winner from Chicago (don’t recall his name) actually said he heard about the contest through HardwareGeeks.com and entered or tried to enter our contest as well, but won the contest Symantec hosted on their site.

I personally would like to thank everyone at Symantec especially Cecilia for inviting me!

Photo Credit:
Robert Holland
http://www.robertholland.com