Professor John Goree & Lou Datilio Gravity Weight Falling in Space: Microgravity (Weightlessness)
Q. What keeps you from floating out of your chair, when you are seated? A. Gravity
Q. Why does everything dropped (here, the apples) fall downward? A. Gravity All things attract one another
Pictures taken (at regular intervals) of a ball falling Falling
All objects fall at the same speed (without air resistance) Falling
Demonstration: quarter and feather
Throwing a ball at different speeds Falling
Throwing it hard enough might make it go into orbit around the earth Falling
Demonstration: Java applet (Fowler’s Physics Applets)
Weight
Demonstration: weight on a bathroom scale
Weight and Weightlessness inside an elevator Weight
Weightlessness: inside a falling elevator in a spacecraft, They are alike, because both are falling
Video: free fall
astronauts inside their spacecraft Weightlessness
Space Station months Space shuttle <17 days Sounding rockets10 min KC sec Drop towers 5 sec Vomit Comet “Microgravity” = “Weightlessness” Weightlessness
Parabolic airplane flights = vomit comet Microgravity
Spacecraft: Mir Space Station Mir: Spring, 2000
International Space Station “ISS”
ISS - Assembly Sequence
International Space Station
Space Shuttle
Video - Space Shuttle launch
Demonstration cars Video Astronauts in Space Shuttle
Demonstration: basketball Video: basketball in space
Microgravity projects at the Univ. of Iowa Physics Dept.
PKE - Plasmakristall Experiment Germany, Russia, U.S Parabolic flight tests ISS Dec launch the 1 st physical sciences experiment on ISS PKE flight hardware with 1st & 3rd ISS crews
PKE accommodation Zvezda (Russian Service Module) ISS - assembly 1R July 25, 2000
Inside Zvezda
PKE logo
Launched: on Russian Progress rocket from Baikonur, Kazakhstan March, 2001 Will be done: end of 2001 hardware will go through destructive re-entry PKE
Demonstration: Screen up Water balloon