German

“Im Weltall ist man schwerelos,” denken die meisten Leute. Aber was heißt das eigentlich: “schwerelos”, was ist eigentlich “Schwere” in der Physik? Ein kleines Experiment, das mir einst ein befreundeter Experimentalphysiker und ASL-Kollege vom Bremer Fallturm mitgebracht hatte, zeigt das Prinzip:

‘You’re weightless in space,’ is what most people think. But what does that actually mean: ‘weightless’, what is ‘gravity’ in physics? A small experiment that an experimental physicist friend and ASL colleague once brought me from the Bremen drop tower illustrates the principle:

Woman in the Moon

Space suits to protect the human body have been under discussion since the 1920s. The depiction in the 1928 film ‘Woman in the Moon’ shows a suit as it would have been used in the Aouda’s test mode on Earth, but could not function on the moon.

Task: Explain why it cannot work on the moon!

Task: What requirements must a suit fulfil if it is to protect people from bright sunlight, cosmic particle and gamma radiation, enormous temperature fluctuations and negative pressure of the outside gas (‘air’)? What else must such a suit be able to do? (e.g. ensure communication with other people: can you think of any more?)

You will find two more detailed information on the topic on the following pages, if you continue reading.

… and of course at the learning unit “Woman in the moon ’ from exopla.net …

Tasks for Watching

Analyse the realistic plausibility of the depictions of

  1. the rocket launch: Why is the rocket launched from the water? Can this make sense?
  2. Life in space: Why doesn’t the schnapps come out of the bottle? What is the function of the loops on all the walls of the rocket’s interior? Can you write in space with a biro?
  3. Where between the Earth and the Moon is there freedom from forces? (Calculate the exact location of this point; you can use Newton’s law of gravitation as a good approximation).
  4. Does weightlessness (microgravity) only exist at this point or elsewhere? Research the flight altitude of the ISS, the jump altitude of extreme athlete Felix Baumgartner in 2012 and the limit of the Earth’s atmosphere on the Internet. What determines whether a person feels weightless? Does it have anything to do with the atmosphere?
  5. What is it all about when someone returns from an intercontinental flight and says they flew through an ‘air pocket’? The term is a metaphor and physically nonsense, of course – but what does it mean and what really happens to the aircraft?

[German: einige Lösungen/ Antworten findest du in meinem Artikel]