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Wonder of Science

Astronaut Alan Bean enjoying weightlessness in the open space of the orbital workshop on the Skylab space station in 1973.

@wonderofscience it still hurts to knock your head against a wall, right?

@christianschwaegerl @wonderofscience I guess it would. You still have inertia and mass So, the head, a moving object, meets the skylab's wall, a not moving object from the point of view of the skylab, with a much bigger mass. Maybe it coukd have a little impact on the skylab's orbit, but very small.

@mister_morteau @christianschwaegerl @wonderofscience Hitting the wall with your head would have no more impact than pushing off with your feet had. Ultimately, the spacecraft and everything inside it forms a closed system, and nothing you do wholly inside can affect the orbit. If it could, then you would have invented a reactionless drive and we could go to the stars.

@wonderofscience I wonder whether being in zero gravity also lowers the chance of becoming dizzy doing such exercises?

@tomvdp @wonderofscience

According to this article, once they become acclimated to zero gravity, it is very rare for astronauts to get dizzy, even when spinning or doing flips.

popularmechanics.com/space/new

Popular Mechanics · Why Astronauts Can't Get Dizzy in SpaceBy Avery Thompson

@McD1979 @tomvdp @wonderofscience These guys are also in peak physical condition and great health, also many are former fighter pilots and such, so if anyone could do these things it’s them :D

@wonderofscience It was huge. I'm amazed by the space he has around him.

@mister_morteau @wonderofscience

I know right? The ISS is nowhere near that spacious and it's 50 years more advanced.

Makes me appreciate the size of the rocket that sent Skylab up, too.

@wonderofscience Actually due to conservation of angular momentum he just can't stop spinning 🫨

@wonderofscience It's one of the smaller tragedies of space history that Skylab's orbit decayed quicker than expected and the Shuttle took even longer than expected to start flying so the Shuttle never got to dock with and reboost Skylab as was originally planned. The ISS might have been very different if that'd happened.

@wonderofscience I didn't know there was so much space in skylab