REPOST: Help needed settling a bet

I've sent this once already, but it hasn't shown up. Sorry if it duplicates.



We were discussing "Space Cadets" in work today, and someone asked if they
would put the cadets into an "anti-gravity chamber". I told them there was
no such thing, but she insisted.

There's now money riding on this.

I've printed off the section of the NASA website, where they say there is no
such thing as anti-gravity chambers. Sweet. Ten quid for me.

But the page mentions "Drop towers", and just to clarify that's not what my
colleague was referring to, I want to know if it's possible to put a person
into a chamber in a drop-tower, or would they be squished at the bottom?
Could she have seen footage of someone floating about in one?

I've already discussed the vomit-comet with her, and she says that's not
what she's referring to.

Sounds like she might be thinking about one of those vertical
wind-tunnels skydivers use to perfect their freefall technique.

Paul O'Neill wrote:

I've sent this once already, but it hasn't shown up. Sorry if it duplicates.



We were discussing "Space Cadets" in work today, and someone asked if they
would put the cadets into an "anti-gravity chamber". I told them there was
no such thing, but she insisted.

There's now money riding on this.

I've printed off the section of the NASA website, where they say there is no
such thing as anti-gravity chambers. Sweet. Ten quid for me.

But the page mentions "Drop towers", and just to clarify that's not what my
colleague was referring to, I want to know if it's possible to put a person
into a chamber in a drop-tower, or would they be squished at the bottom?
Could she have seen footage of someone floating about in one?

I've already discussed the vomit-comet with her, and she says that's not
what she's referring to.

We were discussing "Space Cadets" in work today, and someone asked
if they
would put the cadets into an "anti-gravity chamber". I told them there was
no such thing, but she insisted.

If you figure out how to do that, you'll have Mr. Gates cleaning your
bathroom. Anti-gravity is (at least with our current knowledge of
physics) impossible. We may discover otherwise eventually, but at least
for now your "anti-gravity chamber" is just made up. Unless you fly on
one of the parabolic zero-G flights...

In sci.space.tech Paul O'Neill wrote:
I've sent this once already, but it hasn't shown up. Sorry if it duplicates.



We were discussing "Space Cadets" in work today, and someone asked if they
would put the cadets into an "anti-gravity chamber". I told them there was
no such thing, but she insisted.

There's now money riding on this.

I've printed off the section of the NASA website, where they say there is no
such thing as anti-gravity chambers. Sweet. Ten quid for me.

But the page mentions "Drop towers", and just to clarify that's not what my
colleague was referring to, I want to know if it's possible to put a person
into a chamber in a drop-tower, or would they be squished at the bottom?
Could she have seen footage of someone floating about in one?

You can put someone in a tower, and drop them in a sealed chamber,
and get some time weightless.
But...
The worlds tallest building is ~500m high.
To fall that far, from rest takes about 10 seconds.

But you'd have to cut a couple of seconds off that, for decelleration
time, to avoid excessive employee turnover.
So, 8 seconds, or maybe 16 seconds, if you start at the bottom, accellerate
up, freefall, then come back down.

But in all, not a whole lot of time.

In article ,
"Paul O'Neill" wrote:

We were discussing "Space Cadets" in work today, and someone asked if they
would put the cadets into an "anti-gravity chamber". I told them there was
no such thing, but she insisted.

There's now money riding on this.

There is no known technology to negate gravity. In fact, gravity
is so little understood that nobody really knows how it works.

What you can do is set up situations where you counteract gravity.
You can do that in the airplane flying parabolas, in a swimming pool
where you make the student weight exactly what they displace in
water, or in things like parachute towers where the wind updraft
counterbalances your fall.

But the page mentions "Drop towers", and just to clarify that's not what my
colleague was referring to, I want to know if it's possible to put a person
into a chamber in a drop-tower, or would they be squished at the bottom?
Could she have seen footage of someone floating about in one?

There was a segment on American Hotrod where Boyd took the crew
out to the drop tower at Perris Airport in the LA area, and let
each of the crew members take a turn parachuting.

-john-

--
================================================== ====================
John A. Weeks III 952-432-2708
Newave Communications http://www.johnweeks.com
================================================== ====================

"Henry Vanderbilt" wrote in message
...
Paul O'Neill wrote:

I've sent this once already, but it hasn't shown up. Sorry if it
duplicates.



We were discussing "Space Cadets" in work today, and someone asked if
they
would put the cadets into an "anti-gravity chamber". I told them there
was
no such thing, but she insisted.

There's now money riding on this.

I've printed off the section of the NASA website, where they say there is
no
such thing as anti-gravity chambers. Sweet. Ten quid for me.

But the page mentions "Drop towers", and just to clarify that's not what
my
colleague was referring to, I want to know if it's possible to put a
person
into a chamber in a drop-tower, or would they be squished at the bottom?
Could she have seen footage of someone floating about in one?

I've already discussed the vomit-comet with her, and she says that's not
what she's referring to.

Sounds like she might be thinking about one of those vertical
wind-tunnels skydivers use to perfect their freefall technique.


Nope, asked her about that as well.

Yes, a drop tower would "squish" a person at the bottom -- how severely
would depend on how rapid the deceleration was. Come to think of it,
there's a new amusement ride that does pretty much the same thing.

I'd bet she is either confusing vacuum with microgravity, thinking of
broadcasts from orbit, or is one of the UFO-believers who thinks the moon
landing was faked. Occam's razor says antigravity would be far more
impressive than landing on the moon.

/kenw


"Paul O'Neill" wrote:

I've sent this once already, but it hasn't shown up. Sorry if it duplicates.



We were discussing "Space Cadets" in work today, and someone asked if they
would put the cadets into an "anti-gravity chamber". I told them there was
no such thing, but she insisted.

There's now money riding on this.

I've printed off the section of the NASA website, where they say there is no
such thing as anti-gravity chambers. Sweet. Ten quid for me.

But the page mentions "Drop towers", and just to clarify that's not what my
colleague was referring to, I want to know if it's possible to put a person
into a chamber in a drop-tower, or would they be squished at the bottom?
Could she have seen footage of someone floating about in one?

I've already discussed the vomit-comet with her, and she says that's not
what she's referring to.

Ken Wallewein
K&M Systems Integration
Phone (403)274-7848
Fax (403)275-4535

www.kmsi.net

Paul O'Neill wrote:
I've sent this once already, but it hasn't shown up. Sorry if it duplicates.



We were discussing "Space Cadets" in work today, and someone asked if they
would put the cadets into an "anti-gravity chamber". I told them there was
no such thing, but she insisted.

There's now money riding on this.

I've printed off the section of the NASA website, where they say there is no
such thing as anti-gravity chambers. Sweet. Ten quid for me.

But the page mentions "Drop towers", and just to clarify that's not what my
colleague was referring to, I want to know if it's possible to put a person
into a chamber in a drop-tower, or would they be squished at the bottom?
Could she have seen footage of someone floating about in one?

From a physics point of view, however many seconds of 0g someone gets
in a vertical free fall, they can be stopped gradually in the same
number of seconds, and over the same distance, by subjecting them to
2g. So they don't have to be smashed at the bottom. But you would
need a very tall tower indeed to get more than a few seconds of free
fall. Doing it in my head (so I may be wrong) I get about 18000 meters
for a 60 sec free fall. Plus 18K more for braking.

I think she saw footage of the vomit comet that was poorly explained by
the announcer.

I've already discussed the vomit-comet with her, and she says that's not
what she's referring to.

Paul O'Neill wrote:
I've sent this once already, but it hasn't shown up. Sorry if it duplicates.



We were discussing "Space Cadets" in work today, and someone asked if they
would put the cadets into an "anti-gravity chamber". I told them there was
no such thing, but she insisted.

You lost; they exist all right.

Take a sturdy enough box, crawl inside, and have some other people lift
it, then drop it. Alternatively, have them push it over the edge of a
table. From the time the box lost contact with the helpers' hands / the
table till it hits the floor, it will have the same acceleration as that
of gravity, and inside there will be no percieveble gravity. There's the
anti gravity chamber.... Thinking about it, it's probably safer just to
jump from that table, but then there's no chamber.

The drop towers are higher variants of the same, with the added feature
of a brake, so you won't get killed at the bottom. Airplanes can fly in
trajectories that effectively cancel gravity (perception) for a minute
or so (again, it's cheaper to pull out before the plane hits the
ground). Spaceships in orbit can follow such a trajectory until the
passenger has been convinced and just wants to go home.

Soren

In article ,
"Paul O'Neill" wrote:

We were discussing "Space Cadets" in work today, and someone asked if they
would put the cadets into an "anti-gravity chamber". I told them there was
no such thing, but she insisted.

There's now money riding on this.

You win. There is no such thing.

But the page mentions "Drop towers", and just to clarify that's not what my
colleague was referring to, I want to know if it's possible to put a person
into a chamber in a drop-tower, or would they be squished at the bottom?
Could she have seen footage of someone floating about in one?

No, because drop tower canisters are generally much too small for a
person. How much force is squishing the contents at the bottom depends
on how it's designed.

Of course many amusement parks have drop towers designed for people, but
these are open, not giant vacuum chambers like scientific drop towers.
And you don't float about in them, you're strapped into a chair.

I've already discussed the vomit-comet with her, and she says that's not
what she's referring to.

That (or the commercial equivalent -- check out
http://www.nogravity.com/) is the only way of simulating microgravity
without actually being in orbit.

Henry's guess about skydiving training chambers is a good possibility,
though. Of course you're not actually weightless in those; you're just
held up by a very strong wind, as long as you maintain your body in the
correct position.

Best,
- Joe

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