Most people assume that astronauts orbitin Earth are weightless because there is no gravity in space…
However, at the 500-kilometre-or-so height of the International Space Station, gravity is only about 15 per cent weaker then on Earth’s surface. The real reason astronauts are weightless is that they and their spacecraft are in free fall just as surely as someone in an elevator when the cable breaks. The difference is that they never hit the ground. Why? Because Earth is round and, as fast as they fall toward the surface, the surface curves away from them. They, therefore, fall forever in a circle.
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