WEBVTT
Kind: captions
Language: en

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- I'm at Space Camp in
Huntsville, Alabama,

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and this is the Multi-Axis
Trainer, or MAT.

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Otherwise known as that spinny thing
that astronauts get strapped into.

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This is an icon of space exploration
and space training.

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And it looks really fun,
or really terrifying,

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depending on how close you are to it.

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But what does it actually do?

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- You ready?
- No!

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- Eyes open.

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- Whoa.

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- When you come to Space
Camp, you typically

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ride the MAT for no
longer than 45 seconds.

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The MAT spins on three different axes
and three different rings.

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The outer ring is locked. The centre ring
is powered by a motor,

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and then the inner ring is free spinning.

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And then inside that is a chair
that is also spinning on a different axis.

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While you're riding the MAT, you don't
spin in more than one direction

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twice in a row, so you
don't get dizzy or nauseous,

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but you do get disoriented.

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It's a very important
difference that they feel.

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As your stomach stays in
the centre of rotation,

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you're gonna get a lot of
blood and momentum feeling

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in your head and your feet.

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Most people love the feeling
of the Multi-Axis Trainer.

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They love the feeling of being disoriented

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without being dizzy, which
is a really rare experience

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for most roller coasters
or simulators like this.

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It's based off of something
called the MASTIF,

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which was used during
the Mercury programme.

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The MASTIF was actually a series of cages
around a central chair.

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The MAT is a series of rings.

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During the 1960s, astronauts in the
Mercury and Gemini programs

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would need to train
on something like the MASTIF

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because of the shape of their vehicle.

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It's a capsule and it
would spin very erratically

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if something were going wrong.

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Unlike the Shuttle astronauts where they
were in something more plane-shaped,

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and so when something is
going wrong in a plane

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it doesn't act the same.

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- So the Mercury astronauts
weren't just strapped

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into this thing's big
brother to disorient them.

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It was training, if something -- oh! --
like this is happening in space,

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then your mission has
gone disastrously wrong.

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In training, they would be spun up to
anything up to 30 revolutions a minute,

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much faster than this,
with much higher G forces.

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And then the trainer would hand
the controls over to them.

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The astronaut's chair would [groans]

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have controls on it connected
to nitrogen gas thrusters.

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They would have to work out
which way they were spinning

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in three dimensions,
in real time. [groans]

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And then they would have to figure out
how to make it stop.

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For me, it's a little bit easier.

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Could we uh, could we
make this stop, please?

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- The MAT was never used to
actually train astronauts.

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We only use it as a
simulator here at Space Camp.

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I've actually ridden the MAT as well.

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We had to do it for training.

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I like to say that most
people don't get dizzy,

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because there are some people who do.

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I'm one of them!

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- I completely forgot to do the outro.

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Could we go again, please?

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- If you're good.

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- [groans] Oh, there we go.

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Thank you very much to all
the team at Space Camp.

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You can find out more about them

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at the links on screen
or in the description.

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[laughs] Yeah, I'm done.

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I am very much done.