Science: How Zero Gravity Feels

An artificial satellite on an orbit around the earth is in "free fall." So is a rocket cruising through space with its motor cold. People on board a satellite or rocket would feel weightless, and space medicine experts have long feared that unaccustomed freedom from gravitation will upset human organs or nerves.

Weightlessness is easy to achieve on earth, but only for short intervals. The simplest way is to jump off something, even a chair. While the jumper is in free fall, his body as a whole is pulled by the earth's gravitation, but the parts of his body feel weightless. In...

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