How does an astronaut float in a space shuttle

UCSB Science Line UCSB Science Line Why do we float in space? Question Date: 2013-02-14 Answer 1: Sometimes people say that we float in space because there is no gravity to pull us towards anything, however this isn't quite true. Let's say you were living in the international space station which is about 250 miles about the surface of the earth. The gravitational pull towards the Earth is only a little bit weaker than it is here at sea level. The reason astronauts float in the space station is that they are in free fall. It's a little bit like when you ride on a really fast roller coaster and you feel yourself lifting a little bit out of your seat. Fortunately the space station is not falling straight down towards the Earth so they never crash instead they are constantly falling away from the Earth fast enough that they never land. That's a little hard to describe in words but here's a picture that might help Answer 2: Normally, things are slowed by air molecules, or dragged towards a planet by gravity. However, space behaves like a vacuum, because there are so few molecules around. You float because the attractive force of gravity in space is much less (because you're far away from massive objects like planets), and you continue to travel in the same direction because there is nothing to get in your way (like air molecules, which would normally slow you down). Answer 3: Believe it or not there is a force that constantly pulls you toward the center of the earth. In fact, y...

• Pressurized atmosphere - The space suit provides air pressure to keep the fluids in your body in a liquid state -- in other words, to prevent your bodily fluids from boiling. The pressure in the suit is much lower than normal air pressure on Earth (4.3 versus 14.7 PSI) so that the suit doesn't balloon and so that it's as flexible as possible. • Oxygen - Space suits must supply pure • Regulated temperature -- To cope with the extremes of temperature, most space suits are heavily insulated with layers of fabric (Neoprene, Gore-Tex, Dacron) and covered with reflective outer layers (Mylar or white fabric) to reflect • Protection from micrometeroids -- Space suits have multiple layers of durable fabrics such as Dacron or Kevlar. These layers prevent the suit from tearing on exposed surfaces of the spacecraft. • You would become unconscious within 15 seconds because there's no oxygen. • Your blood and body fluids would boil and then freeze because there is little or no air pressure. • Your tissues (skin, • You would face extreme changes in temperature: Shade: -148°F (-100°C); Sunlight: 248°F (120°C) • You would be exposed to various types of radiation, such as cosmic rays, and charged particles emitted from the sun (solar wind). • You could be hit by small particles of dust or rock that move at high speeds (micrometeoroids) or orbiting debris from The human body could tolerate a complete vacuum for a few seconds at the most. So in the scene in "2001: A Space Odyssey" where Dav...

This problem has been solved! You'll get a detailed solution from a subject matter expert that helps you learn core concepts. See Answer See Answer See Answer done loading Question:Why does an astronaut float inside the space shuttle ? Because there is no gravity in space Because the pull from the Moon equalizes the pull of the Earth Because both the astronaut and the shuttle are both falling towards Earth at the same rate. Because uniform forces from the shuttle are the same on all sides of the astronaut, canceling out and making the Why does an astronaut float inside the space shuttle ? Because there is no gravity in space Because the pull from the Moon equalizes the pull of the Earth Because both the astronaut and the shuttle are both falling towards Earth at the same rate. Because uniform forces from the shuttle are the same on all sides of the astronaut, canceling out and making the astronaut appear to float.

According to the Any two bodies in the universe attract each other with a force that is directly proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them. In view of this, astronauts in a space station should be attracted by nearby objects. So they must be attracted towards heavy objects like machines etc. How are they floating without the attraction of gravitational force of nearby objects? $\begingroup$ If you think about it, nothing at all in your question depends on the astronaut and the heavy object being in space. You could equally well ask why an astronaut who is walking down the street isn't attracted to nearby heavy objects like buildings. The answer in space is exactly the same as the answer here on earth. $\endgroup$ Objects in orbit are attracted to each other, it's just their mass is small enough that the force of gravity between them is infinitesimal. Gravitational acceleration is dependent on mass and distance. In a scenario where a 150 kg astronaut is 10 m from a 80,000 kg Space Shuttle, the astronaut would be pulled toward the Shuttle at 5.336e-8 m/second squared. That's 0.00000005336 as opposed to the Earth's surface gravity of 9.8 m/second squared, and ~ 8.7 m/second squared at orbital altitude of 375 km. In other words, the Earth's force on the astronaut would be over 160 million times stronger, if it wasn't balanced by the exactly opposing centrifugal force due to their orbital speed of 7,682.5 m...

I disagree; you don't need to invoke the fabric of space-time to explain a gravity well. A gravity well is simply a way of thinking of objects with mass in space, and how hard it is to pull away from those objects (i.e. how hard it is to climb out of the well). If you are stuck in a well, you need to use enough energy to be able to escape the well. Likewise, if you are in the gravity well of a star or a black hole, you need to gain enough energy to be able to escape its pull. The more massive the object, the deeper the well. Easy peasy. To clarify a bit about why exactly gravity increases and then decreases as you go from space to Earth's core (excellent figure, drdarkcheese1), let's think of the relevant equation: a_g = G*M/r^2, where G is the gravitational constant and r is your distance from the Earth's center. Now think of M. Normally, this is just the mass of Earth when we do these calculations, because we don't normally think of gravity inside an object. If you go deep into the planet, though, the core's mass will still pull you down, but now the mass that is over your head will be pulling you up! Thus, gravity will decrease all the way to zero as we reach the center of the planet. Pretty neat, eh? -RNS Assuming uniform density of the Earth, the gravity decreases as you go towards the center until it reaches zero at the center. The reason it is zero is because there is equal mass surrounding you in all directions so the gravity is pulling you equally in all direction...

Answer: Astronauts only float around in the shuttle when they are outside the gravitational pull of the earth Explanation: when astronauts takes off from the earth, they get to a point (space) where the earth's gravity can no longer pull them. At this state, they experience weightlessness because there is no gravity. Since there is no gravity to pull them down, hence they start floating. A soccer ball is kicked from point Pi at an angle above a horizontal field. The ball follows an ideal path before landing on the field at point Pf . Which of the following statements is true when the ball is at point X? A. The horizontal velocity vector points to the right & equals v cos θ. B. The vertical velocity points up & equals v sin θ. C. The acceleration vector points up. D. The total velocity equals the initial velocity v. Answer:braking Explanation: Large vehicles as compared to small vehicles require long braking distance, otherwise, it could topple the heavy vehicles. Heavy vehicles provide high torque thus it is used to carry heavy loads. They run at relatively low speed as compared to the light vehicles as they are slow to accelerate and thus require long braking distance as Momentum associated with them is very high. If sudden brakes are applied it may cause the vehicle to skid and flip over it due to the presence of large momentum. Answer: The car's average speed is 32 kilometers per hour Explanation: 1. Let's review the information given to us to answer the question corr...

This problem has been solved! You'll get a detailed solution from a subject matter expert that helps you learn core concepts. See Answer See Answer See Answer done loading Question:Why do astronauts float in the space shuttle? Bob says. "The reason they float is that they're so high up that gravity is very weak up there." Stella says, They're traveling so fast that their outward centrifugal force balances the inward gravitational force, so the net force on the astronauts is zero and they float." a) Convince Bob that he's wrong, Why do astronauts float in the space shuttle? Bob says. "The reason they float is that they're so high up that gravity is very weak up there." Stella says, They're traveling so fast that their outward centrifugal force balances the inward gravitational force, so the net force on the astronauts is zero and they float." a) Convince Bob that he's wrong, possibly by appealing to an earlier problem on this sheet Why is Stella wrong? Why DO astronauts float when they're in the orbitting space shuttle? Previous question Next question

Pete Turner/Stone Collection/Getty Images ­Launching a spacecraft into space is one thing. B­ringing it back is another. Spacecraft reentry is tricky business for several reasons. When an object enters the gravity and drag. Gravity will naturally pull an object back to Earth. But gravity alone would cause the object to fall dangerously fast. Luckily, Earth's atmosphere contains particles of air. As the object falls, it hits and rubs against these particles, creating friction. This friction causes the object to experience drag, or air resistance, which slows down the object to a safer entry speed. Read more about these factors in " This friction is a mixed blessing, however. Although it causes drag, it also causes intense heat. Specifically, shuttles faced intense temperatures of about 3000 degrees Fahrenheit (about 1649 degrees Celsius) [source: Hammond]. Blunt-body design helped alleviate the heat problem. When an object — with blunt-shaped surface facing down — comes back to Earth, the blunt shape creates a shock wave in front of the vehicle. That shock wave keeps the heat at a distance from the object. At the same time, the blunt shape also slows the object's fall [source: The ablative material that burned up upon re-entry, absorbing heat. Unlike the Apollo vehicles, which were built for one-time use, space shuttles were reusable launch vehicles (RLVs). So instead of merely using ablative material, they incorporated durable insulation. Next, we'll delve more deeply into...

This problem has been solved! You'll get a detailed solution from a subject matter expert that helps you learn core concepts. See Answer See Answer See Answer done loading Question:Why does an astronaut float inside the space shuttle ? Because there is no gravity in space Because the pull from the Moon equalizes the pull of the Earth Because both the astronaut and the shuttle are both falling towards Earth at the same rate. Because uniform forces from the shuttle are the same on all sides of the astronaut, canceling out and making the Why does an astronaut float inside the space shuttle ? Because there is no gravity in space Because the pull from the Moon equalizes the pull of the Earth Because both the astronaut and the shuttle are both falling towards Earth at the same rate. Because uniform forces from the shuttle are the same on all sides of the astronaut, canceling out and making the astronaut appear to float.

UCSB Science Line UCSB Science Line Why do we float in space? Question Date: 2013-02-14 Answer 1: Sometimes people say that we float in space because there is no gravity to pull us towards anything, however this isn't quite true. Let's say you were living in the international space station which is about 250 miles about the surface of the earth. The gravitational pull towards the Earth is only a little bit weaker than it is here at sea level. The reason astronauts float in the space station is that they are in free fall. It's a little bit like when you ride on a really fast roller coaster and you feel yourself lifting a little bit out of your seat. Fortunately the space station is not falling straight down towards the Earth so they never crash instead they are constantly falling away from the Earth fast enough that they never land. That's a little hard to describe in words but here's a picture that might help Answer 2: Normally, things are slowed by air molecules, or dragged towards a planet by gravity. However, space behaves like a vacuum, because there are so few molecules around. You float because the attractive force of gravity in space is much less (because you're far away from massive objects like planets), and you continue to travel in the same direction because there is nothing to get in your way (like air molecules, which would normally slow you down). Answer 3: Believe it or not there is a force that constantly pulls you toward the center of the earth. In fact, y...