How does the space station stay in place without floating off somewhere?

Question

Space Shuttle Station

Answer 1

It is held in lower earth orbit by the earths gravity...

Answer 2

The station is held in place by a balance of two forces working against the other.

1. Centrifugal force which is pulling the station outwards

2. Earths gravity pulling it back to the ground.

as the station revolves around the earth it's speed trys to throw it out into space, gravity in turn opposes this action keeping the station in a orbit.
The most critical is speed if it slows down then the stations orbit will slowly decay until in burns up in the atmosphere from the friction. If the speed increases then the station reaches escape velocity and is rocketed outward into space.

try this experiment to demonstrate the first two conditions.
The ball will be your station and the string will be earths gravity.
Tie a the tennis ball to the end of a string about 3 feet long.

being careful not to hit anyone, hold the unweighted end and
swing it around over your head so that it goes in a circle.
do it slowly at first then increase the speed and notice the effect it has on the weighted end.
the escape velocity test.
this will then have anyone around you get some 30 feet away when this done and as it spins over head release the string and observed the results.

Answer 3

When a spacecraft like the Shuttle or the Space Station are in orbit, it is in a sense falling all the time. The force of gravity is balanced by the 17,000 mph speed of the craft to a point where it is falling around around the Earth but never hitting it because you are falling around the other side. Hard to understand but it's nice to know that the nature of outer space insures that once you get up to a speed you continue to go that speed without slowing down unless your speed is influenced by bumping into other matter or the gravity of a planetary body. The Shuttle and the space station travel in this way and are only acted apron by the tiny wisps of the upper atmosphere and the gravity of the Earth.

Answer 4

Think of a helicopter hovering over the earth. The earth is pulling on the helicopter trying to make it crash. The helicopter counters this by using its rotors so that the force of gravity is negated by the force from the rotors; so it hovers.

Same thing with the space station. the Earth is trying to pull it down and the space station is moving in such a way as to maintain its height above the earth.

Edit:
For all people out there talking about centrifugal force; it is does not exist. It is just a concept that helps explain certain physical situations.

The real reason why the space station doesn't fall to earth is that it is moving in a straight line tangential to the earths surface. As Einstein showed it is the warping of space time by the weight of the Earth that causes the space station into a circular orbit around the Earth. There is NO force acting on the spacecraft perpendicular to the Earths surface pushing the space station away from the Earth as is required by the concept of centrifugal force.

Answer 5

No, it doesn't float around in zero gravity--the Earth's gravity in low-Earth orbit is about 90% of what we feel here on the surface. The way the ISS stays up there is by orbiting--going around the Earth just fast enough to match the pull of gravity, so it never falls down. So what the astronauts feel up there is more appropriately called free fall--they're actually falling toward the ground, but moving sideways fast enough that centrifugal force counteracts it. The ISS is built of components that were launched up there by Russian rockets and the Space Shuttle, then assembled in space. No real magic to it, except the incredibly complicated mathematics involved in figuring out how high to go, how fast to go, how much fuel is required to put item X in such-and-such an orbit, etc.

Answer 6

The space station is still affected by earth's gravity but because is high above the surface of the earth it falls a bit slower than if it was at the surface of the earth, it is actually falling at a rate of about fifteen feet per second but it is moving forward at 17500 MPH which is just under 5 miles per second. The path of the space station forms a parabola that matches the curvature of the earth's surface so it is always at the same altitude.

Answer 7

It does not stay in one place. It orbits Earth at 17,500 MPH. It is always going 17,500 MPH which is really fast. I have seen it go over several times. It looks about like a high flying airliner going over, but without the flashing and colored lights. That is, it looks like a bright star moving across the sky at about the same rate as an airliner would.

Answer 8

The inertia and pull of gravity at the distance away from earth is equal causing it to orbit at the same rate around earth and stay in one place.

Answer 9

Its not stationary. It orbits the earth at a speed that keeps it approximately the same height over the earth throughout the orbit.

Answer 10

The centrifigal force generated from it's velocity is equal to the earth's gravitational attraction at a particular altitude. It remains at that altitude and velocity , and any minor perturbations to the orbit are negated by a cold gas-jet control system