Chair Hubble

January 28th, 2009 | Author: admin

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Chair Hubble

How does the Space Shuttles arm work in space without leverage?

Call this a dumb question, but after thinking about what just happened with the Hubble Telescope and pulling it into the Shuttles bay for repair. My question is this: if I grab a chair and pull on it, my weight offsets the weight of the chair and allows, with the help of my shoes and the traction to the ground created by friction, me to pull the chair, but only to the point that my legs or shows give way mainly due to the weight. So, being weightless in space, when the space shuttle arm pulls on the Hubble to relocate it to the inside of the shuttle, how does it attain leverage to create movement without leverage? Doesn't it require weight or mass to create leverage? Thanks-

Reaction between two bodies in this manner does not depend on weight, only mass. Mass is actually defined as the resistance to acceleration which is independent of any local gravitational field. So if the Shuttle's arm grabs the HST and pulls it in, in reality both objects move - the shuttle towards the Hubble and vice versa. The Hubble does the most moving though since it is the less massive body and therefore has lower resistance to acceleration.

The same principles apply just as much here on Earth - if you jump off the ground you push the Earth away from underneath you. However since the Earth is so much more massive than you are the movement of the Earth is undetectably small whereas your movement upwards is very noticeable.

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