Are we able to re-create Zero Gravity?

Question

Aside from training in water, do astronauts train in a re-created zero gravity?

Answer 1

Hi Stephanie

Generally when people talk about zero gravity what the actually mean is that they feel no accelerating force due to gravity. Gravity can still be there, you just don't feel it.

This requires a quick examination of what we think we know about gravity. According to general relativity (einstein's gravity theory) a state of motion in which you don't feel any external forces is called *inertial motion*. Einstein realised that when you are free-falling in a gravitational field you're actually in inertial motion - you don't feel any net force. You only *feel* gravity when something (eg the surface of the earth) accelerates you out of free fall and makes you be stationary in a gravitational field. Anybody who has been skydiving can confirm this for you - you feel what most people call "weightless" when in freefall, but when you land on earth's surface you feel the acceleration of the ground pushing up against your feet.

This now makes the answer to your question fairly straightforward. If you want to feel no acceleration due to gravity you need to be in freefall. You can achieve this by jumping out of a plane or off a diving tower, or on a roller-coaster. Astronauts can achieve this in short "free-fall" plane flights. An astronaut in orbit around the earth is also in freefall and so feels no acceleration. Note that in each and every one of these examples I've just mentioned gravity is still there - it hasn't been shielded or negated or magicked away - it is the feel of the acceleration that is being avoided.


Hope this helps!
The Chicken

Answer 2

First, let me point out that we still do not understand gravity in any real sense. That being said, the answer to your question (at the moment) is no. Zero-Gravity is, in and of itself, an erroneous concept. Although we do not know what generates gravity, we have observed it to bear a direct relation to mass. The higher the mass, the more the gravitational energy. Gravity is really acceleration. While you are standing still on Earth's surface at sea level, you are actually accelerating at 32 feet per second per second. Now, although you don't move relative to Earth; the force we call gravity is pulling you toward it at that acceleration. Imagine car with the front end touching a large stone building. You can press the accelerator and although the car doesn't move relative to the building, the car still pushes. Thus, in order to create "zero-gravity" you need to apply equal acceleration in the opposite direction. This would not remove gravity from the equation, it would simply balance it out. You can do this in a number of ways. For example, in Las Vegas there is a vertical wind tunnel that moves large volumes of air upward at speeds great enough to lift you off the ground. Gravity in and of itself cannot be removed or canceled by any means known today.

Answer 3

Zero gravity is effectively re-created in an aircraft that flies very high and then free-falls to earth (and resumes flight before hitting the ground).

A body falling toward another, larger, body will not feel any effects of gravity (from the said larger body) while falling. This is scientific fact, and it is used to train astronauts.

Answer 4

Not really there is a plane that can simulate weightlessness. It flies fairly high in the atmosphere and does some tricks to fake it.

It mostly good for showing astronauts and wannabes whats its like and to prepare for nausea.

Answer 5

this question probable comes because of the fact of Hollywood's depiction of 0 gravity, the place the actors merely crawl, because of the fact, i think, properly, i don't understand why they think of they might do this. merely yet another occasion of undesirable technology in familiar subculture. you will be able to look to circulate quicker considering you're unfastened falling, your limbs might circulate freely without hitting something, yet rather you're actually not shifting quicker or slower. Like a number of the different solutions suggested, you ought to be greater careful so which you may tend to circulate greater slowly.

Answer 6

NO, no, no, no, no. Not now, most likely not ever. As long as you have a single atom, single proton, or a single electron, it will have gravity. As long as you exist, you cannot escape from it. Apparent weightlessness can be achieved, but not zero gravity.

Answer 7

yes they do .. the air force has a plane that they train in for 0 gravity it only last for a min but they get to float around the plane it is cool....

Answer 8

we cant re-create zero gravity, but we can simulate it. nasa has a zero gravity research center in ohio

Answer 9

I believe the Zero-G flights follow a parabolic trajectory

Answer 10

yes, in an airplane that does crazy manuvuers