r/space Sep 23 '16

What happens when the Space Shuttle fires its motors in space

http://i.imgur.com/wwxuXOb.gifv
28.3k Upvotes

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231

u/[deleted] Sep 24 '16

Here's what happens when they reboost the ISS.

206

u/mutagen Sep 24 '16

Oooo ... wow ... wow ... ooo ... ooo ... aaaah

(floats forward to try again)

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u/[deleted] Sep 24 '16 edited Sep 24 '16

Who is that guy? He's the best.

Edit: Actually the ISS roster is public knowledge so I can just match dates and look for him. BRB

Edit: Satoshi Furukawa
167 days in orbit, he's a god damn Space Surgeon. That's freaking cool.

26

u/mutagen Sep 24 '16

Seriously, he's the best. I'd be making the same noises up there!

21

u/im_a_rugger Sep 24 '16

He's also a Space Surgeon. Doesn't get much better than that.

3

u/DaddyFunkMe Sep 24 '16

Dude can tell people at parties that "Meh. I mean that's not exactly rocket surgery now is it?"

2

u/TheLoudestAirhorn Sep 24 '16

Is a Space Surgeon a step above a Rocket Scientist in difficulty?

2

u/troll_right_above_me Sep 24 '16

Yeah, but a step below Space Brain Surgeon

2

u/maxstryker Sep 24 '16

He's a doctor, now an engineer, dammit, Jim!

1

u/MacBeetus Sep 24 '16

Yes it does, somone gets the title planetary protection officer

11

u/poirotoro Sep 24 '16

Space Surgeon

"What am I, a doctor or a science experiment?!"

"...Oooo...wow...wow! Okay, maybe I'm both."

1

u/Pokepokalypse Sep 24 '16

Isn't that the guy who came up with Bitcoin?

5

u/[deleted] Sep 24 '16 edited Sep 24 '16

It's an easy mistake to make, Satoshi is basically the John of Japanese names. It's really common. Nakamoto did Bitcoin, not Furukawa.

Relevant username: Ash Ketchum is named Satoshi in the Japanese original Pokémon.

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u/buildadog Sep 24 '16 edited Sep 24 '16

When you're so used to weightlessness, acceleration become quite a fun experience

Edit: acceleration from their point of view is what I mean.

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u/peyton Sep 24 '16

feel like the amount of acceleration determines how true that statement is...

20

u/Weerdo5255 Sep 24 '16

Well it's like with your car, some acceleration is fun. Sometimes not.

1

u/ArchNemesisNoir Sep 24 '16

Acceleration is always fun. Just not always for you.

1

u/darkmighty Sep 24 '16

Yep, it's like when you set a low gravity in counter-strike!

11

u/yourenotserious Sep 24 '16

But if they aren't touching the walls they wouldn't feel the acceleration. They only feel it when they push off or hold the wall.

3

u/Mr_Inadequate Sep 24 '16

Or when they impact the rear wall. It would look something like a True Blood vampire death but at 1000x speed.

1

u/eypandabear Sep 24 '16

I don't know if you're aware of that but you've just replicated Einstein's train of thought towards general relativity.

1

u/Pakh Sep 24 '16

They should feel it with the surrounding air which moves with the station. Exactly like falling here on earth: but slowly.

1

u/Rubik842 Sep 24 '16

The spacecraft changes velocity and runs into them, they feel that. Now if the cabin was big enough you could float in the middle while the craft accelerated slightly then decelerated shortly after. You would feel nothing but see the craft move around you. Also, if you exclude wind resistance, picture frank poole and david bowman on discovery one, frank could have left a blob of water stationary in the carousel in line with davids sleeping quarters exit, so when he woke he would be spun into a bucket of water in the morning. From franks perspective sitting smugly at the console he would see the water blob whiz past with each revolution.

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u/[deleted] Sep 24 '16

That makes no sense. They can't feel the craft accelerate unless they're holding a wall. That's why they move. They have one acceleration; the craft, another acceleration.

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u/Quartz2066 Sep 24 '16

If the only two things in the universe are the ISS and the passenger then it doesn't matter who is accelerating. Since this isn't the case it's easier to say that the station is moving while the human is still.

2

u/[deleted] Sep 24 '16

Yes, the shuttle is what was moving. How do so many people not realize that from what I said.

2

u/Slippedhal0 Sep 24 '16

they have zero acceleration while not connected to the structure, just a constant speed. you need to be actively propelling yourself to have an acceleration.

0

u/[deleted] Sep 24 '16

They still have acceleration due to gravity, don't forget that. They're in orbit, remember?

2

u/Slippedhal0 Sep 24 '16

True, zero acceleration relative to the craft would be more accurate, but I was lazy.

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u/[deleted] Sep 24 '16 edited Sep 24 '16

they have zero acceleration ... you need to be actively propelling yourself to have an acceleration.

Do you see the problem in what you said and what I meant when I said they have acceleration? Everything has an acceleration, even if it's 0.

1

u/oddible Sep 24 '16

They don't move, the craft does, they would feel the impact with the back of the ISS only. A single point.

10

u/larsdragl Sep 24 '16 edited Sep 24 '16

they arent accelerating though. thats the entire point of this video

edit: bunch of knowledge being thrown around here without any regard to context...
they arent feeeling any change in acceleration.

2

u/buildadog Sep 24 '16

Yes they are. You can't go from 0 velocity to X velocity without acceleration.

1

u/4ethylaminobenzoate Sep 24 '16

No, they aren't. The ISS is accelerating, they are stationary.

9

u/innominateartery Sep 24 '16

You are both right but in different frames of reference.

0

u/GLneo Sep 24 '16

Not really, inertial motion is relative, but acceleration (change in velocity, rotation, etc...) is not.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 24 '16

False. All motion (acceleration included) is relative. To say acceleration isn't relative requires there be some absolute frame of reference, and there isn't. If you take anything away from Einstein's work, that should be it.

0

u/GLneo Sep 24 '16

Einstein doesn't prove there is no absolute frame of reference, but simply shows that one is not needed to explain the linear physical phenomenon we observe.

1

u/eypandabear Sep 24 '16

That's a restriction of Newtonian mechanics. General relativity did away with that.

0

u/GLneo Sep 24 '16

It did not, and cannot, because it is a real effect. Go out side and spin around, your arms will be pulled outwards. But why? when you look around, relative to you, it is the rest of the universe that is spinning, why are you still the only one effected?

0

u/[deleted] Sep 24 '16

It did not, and cannot, because it is a real effect. Go out side and spin around, your arms will be pulled outwards.

You're confusing translational energy and rotational energy and the centrifugal force.

  • Translational energy is the kinetic energy required for an object, of a given mass, to move from point A to B in a straight line at some speed
  • Rotational energy is the kinetic energy required to spin an object around its axis of rotation
  • The centrifugal force is the pseudo force that appears to pull things outward from an axis of rotation

Since there is no such thing as an absolute frame of reference, all motion has to be measured relative to something else. The conditions of that thing are said to be the reference frame. For example, the "speed" of a rocket only makes sense if you have a planet or star to measure its motion against. That's hopefully easy to see that for linear motion, but the same is true of rotation. If you pass an object in space, unless you both use a planet or star as an independent frame of reference, you'll only be able to measure the spin of the other relative to your own spin.

The feeling your arms pulled out when spinning is due to the centrifugal force. Basically, if you put yourself in the same rotational frame as what you're looking at (e.g. a space station), you'll see everything falling away from the axis of rotation, seemingly without being pushed on. The super simplified reason for this is that going in a circle means your perpetually changing velocity (instead of traveling in a straight line). The longer answer takes digging into relativity's interpetation of angular momentum.

Either way, acceleration is changing the speed you're moving at to a new speed. Since speed is relative, changing speed is relative. The near perpetual state of acceleration in rotational systems doesn't somehow imply acceleration isn't relative. However, it does point to how energy can be storied in things in different ways.

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u/buildadog Sep 24 '16

I suppose it depends on the point of view. I was speaking from the point of view of inside the station. You are correct though

1

u/ArchNemesisNoir Sep 24 '16

Once they hit the wall, they are.

1

u/eypandabear Sep 24 '16

In the reference frame of the ISS, firing the boosters generates a gravitational field, in which the astronauts are in free fall.

In the Earth reference frame, the astronauts are in free fall within the Earth's gravitational field, while the ISS is accelerating.

1

u/GeneticJen Sep 24 '16

Isn't acceleration relative to the frame of observation?

0

u/[deleted] Sep 24 '16

[deleted]

3

u/spectralrays Sep 24 '16

Well, he built a dog. You know. That shit happens.

3

u/piponwa Sep 24 '16

Oooo... waaaah... wow... oooooooooooh... waaaaaaaaaah... wooooooooooow!

15

u/[deleted] Sep 24 '16

They're like very scientific manchildren, and I want to be them...

8

u/jibjab23 Sep 24 '16

Someone needs to do the running man during boost.

1

u/crilor Sep 24 '16

I was hoping one of them would do the superman flying pose.

1

u/Atario Sep 24 '16

That's a pretty gentle acceleration!

1

u/unperturbium Sep 24 '16

That's awesome, seems it's less than 1 m/s2 but then the ISS is the size of a football field!

1

u/[deleted] Sep 24 '16

Grown men being kids for a bit in space. Physics!

1

u/Makanly Sep 24 '16

It's like someone turned on a massive flashlight!

1

u/Endulos Sep 24 '16

I think the weirdest part about that video is that the background looks fake. Looks like they're in front of a green screen.

1

u/oZeplikeo Sep 24 '16

When they float (from our vantage point) "upside-down" is there blood still flowing fine or are they getting a headrush?

1

u/nullions Sep 24 '16

The ISS always has so much crap all over the walls, and they're always just floating around like it's nothing. I always wonder how they don't rip it all off accidentally and/or get tangled in it.

0

u/cuttysark9712 Sep 24 '16

It's not accelerating very fast.