I forgot when the first manned spacecraft went into zero gravity and they got left behind as the Earth hurled away from them but OP reminded me about it.
Well “zero gravity” doesn’t really mean zero gravity. It’s free fall (due to gravity). If you’re in orbit, you’re moving so fast “sideways” that you perpetually “miss” the Earth and just continue falling forever.
But also free fall (only being acted upon by the force of gravity) is exactly the same as experiencing no force at all, and that’s general relativity in a nutshell
the spacecraft doesn’t immediately lose all the celestial relative velocity just by going into space, it’s still moving extremely fast:
with the sun and earth through the galaxy
with the Earth around the sun
and is still affected by Earth’s gravity, just now it’s able to counter Earth’s pull with a faster motion pulling it outward, so it balances out to appear weightless
Just by going into orbit and counterbalancing the Earth’s gravity with rotational velocity doesn’t mean it’s not still moving extremely fast relative to the stars
I forgot when the first manned spacecraft went into zero gravity and they got left behind as the Earth hurled away from them but OP reminded me about it.
Well “zero gravity” doesn’t really mean zero gravity. It’s free fall (due to gravity). If you’re in orbit, you’re moving so fast “sideways” that you perpetually “miss” the Earth and just continue falling forever.
But also free fall (only being acted upon by the force of gravity) is exactly the same as experiencing no force at all, and that’s general relativity in a nutshell
“Zero gravity” isn’t actually zero gravity. In orbit, you’re still falling, the planet is just curving away at the same rate as the fall
the spacecraft doesn’t immediately lose all the celestial relative velocity just by going into space, it’s still moving extremely fast:
Just by going into orbit and counterbalancing the Earth’s gravity with rotational velocity doesn’t mean it’s not still moving extremely fast relative to the stars