Outstanding Jim! Thanks for pointing again to your article. This
should satisfy those Wikipedians who argued that the Criticism section
lacked established reference. I was on the talk page countering that
the entire section was based on principles of gravity and acceleration
as published by Newton in his Principia. The detractors didn't buy
into that view for whatever reason.

You've provided plenty more to get the Criticism re-added to the
article. And hopefully combined efforts will help get the tide turned
to squelch all such physics-deficient terminology. Hey, maybe even
NASA will start to adhere strictly to verbiage backed by sound physics!


~ CT


From Jim Oberg:
Got my vote. I've been arguing the physics of this for years,
welcome to the side of truth and accelerational justice!!


OMNI, 1993:
http://www.jamesoberg.com/myth.html

The myth that satellites remain in orbit because they have "escaped Earth's
gravity" is perpetuated further (and falsely) by almost universal use of the
zingy but physically nonsensical phrase "zero gravity" (and its techweenie
cousin, "microgravity") to describe the free-falling conditions aboard
orbiting space vehicles. Of course, this isn't true; gravity still exists in
space. It keeps satellites from flying straight off into interstellar
emptiness. What's missing is "weight," the resistance of gravitational
attraction by an anchored structure or a counterforce. Satellites stay in
space because of their tremendous horizontal speed, which allows them --
while being unavoidably pulled toward Earth by gravity -- to fall "over the
horizon." The ground's curved withdrawal along the Earth's round surface
offsets the satellites' fall toward the ground. Speed, not position or lack
of gravity, keeps satellites up, and the failure to understand this
fundamental concept means that many other things people "know" just ain't
so.


wrote in message
oups.com...
...as originally posted to, and subsequently removed from, the
Wikipedia article on Weightlessness:

===========

Criticism of the terms "Zero Gravity" and "Microgravity"