The Power and Promise of Lunar Gravity
What standing on the Moon taught me about access, human limits, and the future
On the very first AstroAccess flight in October of 2021, I did not know what I was about to discover.
We had spent months preparing. Research design. Experiment planning. Logistics. Endless conversations about safety and intent. Dozens of people were involved. Weeks of groundwork. Constant back and forth over every decision. We knew the weight of what we were doing. This was the largest disability focused spaceflight research effort in more than sixty years.
That mattered.
A lot.
But personally, my focus was narrow. Almost entirely fixed on one thing.
Microgravity.
I was thinking about the moment when weight would leave my body. About what I could do in true weightlessness. About what it might mean to be a human with a physical disability in a space like environment, and what possibilities might open up there. I obsessed over that idea for weeks. I prepared for it emotionally and mentally. I poured myself into it.
What I did not think much about was partial gravity.
When the plane took off and the emotions began to build, my mind stayed locked on microgravity. That was the prize. That was the experience. Everything else felt secondary.
Then the parabolas started.
The first was Martian gravity, about one third of Earth’s. Interesting, but not transformative. I felt stronger than usual, lighter, but nothing about it fundamentally shifted my understanding of myself or my body.
Then came lunar gravity.
One sixth of Earth’s gravity.
I was excited in a casual way. This should be cool. But I still was not prepared for what happened next.
As the weight began to lift from my body, I felt myself rising, partly from the motion of the aircraft and partly because everything suddenly felt lighter. I found myself becoming upright. More vertical than usual. And a thought crossed my mind almost accidentally.
I wonder if I could stand in this.
I reached for a handrail, a rope beside me, to stabilize myself. In those brief twenty to twenty five seconds of lunar gravity, I got upright. I got onto my legs.
And I was standing.
Almost effortlessly.
Then gravity returned.
I had about a minute before the next lunar parabola, and in that space my mind was racing. I thought, what if I could do this without holding on to anything?
When the next lunar gravity phase began, I moved as quickly as I could. Upright. On my legs. The rope was right there. I let go.
And there I was.
I had been disabled since birth. I could bear weight while leaning or supported, but I had never been able to simply stand upright, unassisted, under my own power.
Until that moment.
I cannot overstate how surreal it was. How absurdly powerful. This was something I had completely written off. An afterthought in a flight I believed was entirely about microgravity. And suddenly it was a turning point in my lived experience.
I had to refocus. There was still a flight to complete. Research to conduct. Microgravity experiments to run. And they were spectacular. Exactly as meaningful and awe inspiring as I had hoped.
But lunar gravity stayed with me.
After the flight, it became a focal point in our debriefs. A New York Times article mentioned it. Other people found inspiration in it, just as I did. It took on a life of its own.
Still, I was cautious.
There was more than a year between the first and second AstroAccess flights. When I was selected for the second crew, I knew I needed to verify what I had experienced. I did not want this to become a fluke, or a sensationalized story, or something I believed only because I wanted to believe it.
I needed data.
For myself.
The second flight had its own primary mission for me. Seat docking drills in microgravity. Suborbital spaceflight companies had serious concerns about whether people with physical or visual disabilities could safely return to their seats and secure their harnesses before gravity came back.
So we built analogous seats based on Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic designs, including five point harnesses. Success meant getting into the seat and fastening at least two of the five buckles before gravity returned. If you could do that, you were safe.
To my knowledge, we had a one hundred percent success rate across both disability categories. That mattered. It led, at least in part, to greater confidence, greater inclusion, and ultimately to history. The first wheelchair user flying to space in December of 2025.
But alongside all of that, I had a personal mission.
Lunar gravity.
On AA2 I worked with astronaut Sirisha Bandla, who was volunteering as flight support crew for the second AstroAccess mission, and asked her to document what I was doing during the lunar parabolas. I needed proof. Video. Witnesses. Something tangible that told me this was not just a frozen moment or a lucky alignment.
It was a last minute request. Our primary experiment was waiting for us during the microgravity parabolas. But she was on board immediately and more than willing to document it.
When the time came, I lay on the floor of the aircraft, waiting.
When the weight lifted, I pushed up. Vertical. Caught myself on my legs.
I was standing.
Unassisted.
Balanced.
Not a fluke.
It was controlled. It was repeatable. It was witnessed. It was recorded.
And in that moment, something clicked.
I can do more.
On the next lunar parabola, I went for it.
I stood up again, wobbly at first, then stable. And then I started jumping. Hopping. Landing. Catching myself on my legs. Staying upright.
I cannot do that on Earth.
I have never done that on Earth.
As someone born with my disability, this was mentally disorienting in the best possible way. There was no expectation of injury. No fear. Just presence.
It was, without exaggeration, fucking amazing.
Lunar gravity did not just let me stand.
It showed me a version of myself I had never been allowed to meet.
And once you see that version of yourself, you cannot unsee it.
Once I got through that moment, it was mind blowing.
I was completely taken by lunar gravity and what it could do. My mind immediately started racing with possibilities. What this might unlock. What could be done with this environment. What it might mean beyond just me.
But I had to pull myself back.
The AstroAccess flight still had a mission, and we were right in the middle of it. The ingress and egress work. The seat docking drills. The thing we had been training for and preparing for over months. So the focus on lunar gravity had to be short lived. I had to get back to the task at hand.
Sirisha and I shifted back into that mode. Tunnel vision. Execution. Completing what we were there to do.
The rest of the flight went incredibly well. We had Gio Benitez from Good Morning America on board, covering the mission. They captured footage of the seat docking drills, including the work I was doing, which was surreal in its own right. We got strong results. We got strong press. And we laid the foundation for years of work that AstroAccess has continued since.
And I want to be clear. The microgravity work mattered. A lot. The value of that research is immense, and I do not want to minimize it in any way. There is real weight there for society, for civilization, and for the future of human spaceflight.
But on a personal level, lunar gravity changed something in me.
It verified what I had experienced on the first flight. It made it real. And it took time for that to sink in. Seeing the photos and videos. Talking it through with others. Letting the reality of it settle. Even now, more than three years later, it still feels remarkable.
It is worth saying that this is the first time I have ever told this story in full. It is also the first time I am sharing the lunar gravity photos and videos from the second AstroAccess flight. I have carried this experience quietly for years, letting it settle before trying to explain it. Writing this felt like the right way to finally let it breathe.
From there, my thinking started to widen.
I began thinking about human spaceflight more broadly. About humanity becoming a spacefaring civilization. About where we might actually live and build, not just visit. I have always been drawn to the Moon. I have long believed it is a critical stepping stone for humanity. A place to build infrastructure. A way outward.
But until that moment, my connection to the Moon was abstract.
Those parabolas made it tangible.
They made me think about what lunar gravity could mean for people, not just astronauts. One hard truth about permanent human presence in space is that it has to make economic sense. There has to be real value. Something that sustains itself. Right now, I am not sure there is a single clear business case that unlocks long term lunar habitation at scale.
But that flight got my gears turning.
If reduced gravity was beneficial for me, then it could be beneficial for others. I am one person, but there are billions of people on Earth living with disability. Others acquire disability through injury or age. The implications are much larger than my own experience.
That led me to think about the elderly.
One of the biggest risks for aging populations is falling. Broken bones. Loss of independence. Reduced gravity dramatically lowers the risk and severity of injury from a fall. It also reduces the strength required to move, stand, and perform everyday tasks.
And the elderly population often has something younger generations do not. Resources.
If I were looking for a group where lunar gravity could meaningfully improve quality of life while also making economic sense, I would start there.
A retirement community on the Moon may sound wild, but in reduced gravity, people could remain independent longer. They could move more freely. They could exist with less strain on their bodies. And if it also reduced injury risk, that is enormous.
There are tradeoffs, of course. Living on the Moon would not be simple. It might even be a one way trip. But imagine waking up every morning and watching the Earth rise. Having family visit for days or weeks at a time. Living longer, safer, and more independently than you could on Earth.
That is not a bad way to spend your final years.
Beyond that, I think about injury recovery. Spinal cord injuries. Traumatic injuries. Rehabilitation. Reduced gravity could allow people to rebuild strength in a more controlled way. Whether on the Moon or on large space stations capable of producing partial gravity, the medical possibilities are vast.
The more I sit with it, the more I believe there is a real case here. On the medical side. On the financial side. On the human side.
If someone is looking for a business case that closes, something that supports sustained human presence beyond Earth, I think this is an area worth serious exploration.
My experience is just one data point. One moment. But it opened a door I had never considered. And if I had the resources, I would run many more lunar gravity focused parabolic flights. I would study falls. Balance. Strength. Independence. Day to day movement for different populations.
This all started as a passing curiosity. Something I barely thought about. And it turned into one of the most meaningful moments of my life.
Those kinds of discoveries do not happen often.
If putting this idea out into the world leads someone else to pick it up and make it real, that would be incredible. Because the more we can show how space benefits everyday people, whether in microgravity or reduced gravity, the more compelling our future beyond Earth becomes.
There is so much left to explore. So much left to understand. So much opportunity waiting.
And if this one moment changed my life, I cannot help but believe there are countless others still waiting to be discovered.
I hope I get to see many of them.
More than that, I hope they actually happen.
- Eric
Note: I’m writing here in a personal capacity. The views expressed are my own and not those of any organization I’ve worked with or advised.
I literally teared up while reading this, Eric. What a powerful piece. This is TED-worthy, a way to get people thinking about the benefits of space at a truly human level, beyond the tech hype or the narratives that the space billionaires push. As someone with ankylosing spondylitis, the thought of living a more physically resilient life on the Moon down the line sounds pretty enticing. There's also a...dark poetry of sorts of thinking about spending retirement, and possibly the rest of one's days, on the Moon. Leaving this world before you leave this world.
Beautiful piece Eric! - Anna