5 MYTHS ABOUT HUMANS IN SPACE
Exploding bodies, time travel, and asteroids the size of tower blocks rushing past – there are plenty of imaginative myths about our trips into space.
Would you explode if exposed to space unprotected? Can space travel make you younger? And should you cancel that trip to the Asteroid Belt? Our space-myth debunking team has the answers.
In recordings from the International Space Station (ISS), we see how astronauts float about as they reach for fruit and other small objects that hang in the air. And that might be one of the reasons why the most diehard myth about humans in space still remains: that astronauts are not influenced by Earth’s gravity. On the contrary, astronauts experience 90% of the gravity to which we are subjected on Earth. The explanation of their acrobatics in the air is to be found in the constant free fall they are subjected to when in orbit around Earth. Although the space station is located some 400km above Earth’s surface, it is constantly moving towards the planet – it is in a free fall. But the space station’s high speed of 28,000km/h means that it will continue its orbit. In popular terms, it is falling in step with the curvature of the Earth – like a cannon ball that is fired from the top of a mountain at a sufficiently high speed. This is also true for the crew inside the space station, who are not moving in relation to the craft and will hence not hit the floor.
Although the effect of gravity will gradually decrease as we travel deeper into space, there is nowhere in the universe where it will disappear altogether. The force is also crucial when an object such as the ISS is to be launched into orbit – if gravity did not pull the object back towards Earth, it would continue deep into the universe.