[amsat-bb] Re: AMSAT-NA totally metric? and now almost totally off topic.

[Sil - ZL2CIA]

Tony Langdon wrote:
--- snip --
> 
> That's for sure.  It's amazing how many people don't know the 
> difference.  Not helped when the mainstream media talks about "body 
> weight problems" when it's really a problem of excess mass.  You can 
> reduce your weight by 100% easily, if you have a spare $20 
> million.  Book a vacation on the ISS! ;)  But it's only temporary, it 
> all comes back when you reach the ground! ;)

Tony,

Are you really weightless in space? Surely you're just in free fall. 
When the  term "weightless" is used to describe the condition astronauts 
experience, this is surely a literary term, rather than a scientific one.

Why spend the $20.000.000 (or 20,000,000 if that's your custom) you 
mention, when you could achieve that same "weightlessness" by jumping 
out of a building (if for a shorter time, of course, and with a riskier 
outcome).

Am I weightless when I jump off a chair?

Are orbiting satellites "weightless"?

Or are they just falling down all the time (in a very special way but 
because of their weight).

If a satellite falls down in the special way we call an orbit because 
the planet's gravity is acting on it's mass, isn't that weight?

So... wouldn't a "weightless" satellite barrel off on a straight line?

Sil