Transcript Weightlessness

Weightlessness
Ryan Ash
What is weightlessness!
• Weightlessness occurs when a body is:
falling freely; in orbit, in outer space or in
an airplane following a particular parabolic
flight path.
• This presentation will focus mainly on the
last one.
Weightlessness in orbit
• Whilst an object is in orbit, for
instance a shuttle, the crew will
feel zero gravity.
• This is because although yes
they are traveling around the
earth they are also accelerating
towards it because of circular
motion.
• The shuttle is accelerating
towards the earth with an
acceleration of G therefore
achieving weightlessness.
Circular motion
• Circular motion is as simple as it sounds, an object moving in a
circle.
• Now because Velocity is a vector quantity when an object is moving
with circular motion its velocity is always changing.
• It’s this change in velocity that gives us the centripetal acceleration
that occurs with circular motion.
• The centripetal acceleration varies with the radius r of the circle and
speed v of the object, becoming larger for greater speed and smaller
radius. More precisely, the centripetal acceleration is given by
• where ω = v / r is the magnitude of angular velocity. The negative
sign indicates that the direction of this acceleration is towards the
centre of the circle
Vomit Comet
• Vomit Comet is a nickname for any airplane that briefly
provides a nearly weightless environment in which to
train astronauts, conduct research, and film motion
pictures.
• The airplane produces weightlessness by following a
parabolic vertical flight path.
• A parabolic flight path is the same path that would be
taken by an object in free fall, such as a cannonball fired
into the air.
• As a result, the aircraft does not exert any G force on its
contents, so the contents have zero apparent weight
relative to the aircraft.
Flight path
• This is the approximate the path needed to be
taken by pilots to achieve weightlessness.