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Old January 13th 07, 07:51 AM posted to sci.space.station
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Default Criticism of the terms "Zero Gravity" and "Microgravity"

From Monte Davis:
I've never understood what's wrong with simple, straightforward "free
fall," which workd from both Newtonian and Einsteinian POVs. Did some
primordial PAO decide that the word "fall," however accurate, was just
too scary?


Here's my take on that...

The term freeFall applies to only half of your orbit at best! From
perigee to apogee, altitude is increasing. Freerise, if you will.

Another detractor is that the term freefall is *not* a synonym for
zero-g. Being well established in the realm of skydiving, freefall is
the falling part of the trajectory prior to parachute opening. It is
important to know that the term is decoupled from a definition of
acceleration. At terminal velocity, a skydiver in freefall is
experiencing 1-g, not 0-g. In contrast...

The term weightlessness is inherently inseparable from zero-g
acceleration. (The only exception would be a massless object, which is
irrelevant.)


~ CT