Note that this Challenge is covered as part of the program start Skype for your community’s Local Team of Mission 10 educators. These Skypes for the Mission 10 communities are being conducted by SSEP National Program Director Dr. Jeff Goldstein through Friday, February 26, 2016.
This blog post is for teachers in the 12 communities across the U.S. that just started SSEP Mission 10 to ISS. You are invited to use this Challenge with your students to get them thinking about the concept of microgravity (the technical name for the phenomenon of ‘weightlessness’). As part of this Challenge, students are asked to submit what they think is an answer in the ‘Leave a Reply’ section below. Please encourage your students to submit answers, so that all students visiting this blog post can see what other Mission 10 students across the U.S. are thinking. Let’s use this blog post as a social media platform for sharing thoughts about microgravity.
[2/23/16 1:00 pm ET update: WOW!! What great comments below already, and the post has only been up for 4 hours! Good thinking everyone:)]
The solution to the Challenge will be posted to this SSEP National Blog on Tuesday, March 1, 2016.
I’ve heard a lot about this weightlessness stuff, with astronauts having a great time floating around in space. So I wanted to find out first hand what’s going on up there. Since they don’t have a spare seat on the next flight to low Earth orbit (at least not yet), I looked far and wide to find an amazingly tall mountain whose peak rises to the Space Station’s altitude in orbit so I could climb up and see for myself.
Station orbits the Earth close to 260 miles (420 km) above sea level, and, by the way, crew and station are zipping along at 4.7 MILES PER SECOND (7.6 km/sec) relative to you sitting there at your computer. Bam. The Station just moved 4.7 miles. Really.
It took some Googling, but I found that really tall mountain! See my mountain in the picture? It accidentally got captured in an old Space Shuttle photo. Mt. Everest is only 5.5 miles (8.8 km) high. MY mountain (Jeff’s Peak) is 260 miles (420 km) high. I found it south of the Land of Make-Believe, down a not too well traveled path. Still, you’d think someone would have noticed it since it’s 47 times higher than Mt. Everest. (Have you ever heard of Jeff’s peak? No? See, nobody knows about it!)
So this week, I’m going to take the time to climb my mountain, and in my hand is my trusty bathroom scale, spring-loaded and guaranteed to be accurate at any altitude. I’ll camp out at the top, and I’ll wait until Space Station flies right by my mountain, so I can look in the windows and see if those lucky astronauts are weightless and floating around.
Here now the challenge—
As soon as I confirm they’re weightless in the Space Station, I’ll step on my bathroom scale to see my weight. If I weigh say 150 lbs when I’m standing on my scale in my bathroom at home, what will I weigh on top of my mountain? **
Hint: You don’t actually need to calculate my weight. I’ll do that in the Solution to the Challenge. Your assignment—if you decide to accept it—is to guess what you think I’ll weigh and why. Hmmmm, lots of possibilities.
Submit your guesses below in the ‘Leave a Reply’ section, and remember to include why you think your guess is correct. Students of ALL ages are welcome to post a guess.
I’ll even give you a week to noodle on this in class, and at home with your parents. I’ll post the answer next Tuesday, March 1, 2016, right here at the SSEP National Blog. See you then, and good luck noodling!
Also – if you want to follow along with the latest news from the Student Spaceflight Experiments Program (SSEP), you are invited to subscribe to the SSEP National Blog at the bottom of the right column.
[**Metric system note: in the metric system, weight is measured in Newtons (N). 150 lbs is equivalent to 667 Newtons, which is the weight of a 68 kg mass at Earth’s surface.]
The solution to this Challenge was posted Tuesday, March 1, 2016.
The Student Spaceflight Experiments Program (SSEP) is a program of the National Center for Earth and Space Science Education (NCESSE) in the U.S., and the Arthur C. Clarke Institute for Space Education internationally. It is enabled through a strategic partnership with NanoRacks LLC, working with NASA under a Space Act Agreement as part of the utilization of the International Space Station as a National Laboratory. SSEP is the first pre-college STEM education program that is both a U.S. national initiative and implemented as an on-orbit commercial space venture.
The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS), and Subaru of America, Inc., are U.S. National Partners on the Student Spaceflight Experiments Program. Magellan Aerospace is a Canadian National Partner on the Student Spaceflight Experiments Program.
I think you will still be 150 pounds on top of Jeff’s Peak. I think you would still weigh 150 because you still have the same weight everywhere you go there is just less gravity pulling on you.
I think he would weigh 75 pounds, that is half his body weight, he will weigh that because he is at a higher altitude and there will be less gravity so he will weigh less.
If Jeff’s mountain was really 260 miles tall, and you wanted to climb it you would have to have a lot of time on your hands. If you weighed 150 pounds you would lose weight after climbing a mountain that is 260 miles tall. I would say you would weigh around 25 pounds after reaching your destination.
I believe the higher Jeff goes the lighter he will be, because he will be higher in the atmosphere and the higher you go into the atmosphere the lighter you will be, because there is less gravity.
cool that’s awesome
Reading all these great comments I just got an idea for Shark Tank! Let’s get some investors like Mr. Wonderful to invest in ‘Jeff’s Mountain Top Resort and Spa’, where we guarantee that you’ll lose weight. Anybody think it’s a good idea? (hmmmm. ….haven’t figured out what happens when guests return back to sea level and see that they put all that weight on again. I think I’ll leave that part out of my presentation to the Sharks.)
The man would weight drastically less. This is because of his height above sea level meaning he is farther out of Earths actual gravity.
I think Jeff will weigh close to nothing because microgravity is not pulling him down.
great guess Monica
I think you will weigh A LOT less. There is a little gravity so around 5-10 pounds maybe. Plus, after climbing a 260 mile tall mountain you would lose a bunch of weight.
I believe that since Jeff is so high up he would definitely weigh less than 150. I think that Jeff would weigh about 125.
He would weigh less as Earth has a weaker gravitational pull farther out. Total body mass would still be the same, but the weight would be the only thing affected, due to the fact that weight is caused by the gravitational pull on an object with mass. The lower the gravity, the lower the weight of said object.
I think he will weigh nothing or close to it because he is not being pulled down by gravity.
I believe that Jeff will weigh up to 50 to 55 pounds because he is not completely in outer space, so therefore there is still a little bit of gravity holding him down.
First of all you are out of the Earth atmosphere so you would be dead (no oxygen). So you might one a oxygen mask. If we were being real. If all my calculations are right you would weigh 132 pounds.
Dear Riley,
Don’t you mean you would want an oxygen mask
Good Job buddy. Good Job………….
i think he will weigh half of what he did when he was on earth.
If you are out of earths atmosphere your weight would not change that much because you are still connected to a piece of land on earth. If you calculate your weight and the difference caused by height above sea level you would be a 25 to 40 pounds because the gravitational pull on earths geographical plane is still there.
If you were to travel 260 miles from sea level you would weigh 130.
I think he’d weigh the same because he’s still in Earth’s atmosphere. As long as he’s inside Earth’s atmosphere, the gravitational force will be the same.
I think he would weigh half of what he weighed on earth since he’s at the top of the mountain that is 260miles in the air. Which means he would weigh less than he did on earth.
In my hypothesis, I want to believe that he will be lighter drastically due to the fact that when you go higher into the atmosphere you will weigh less due to less gravity. He has to weigh some if the mountain is only 260 miles up and the atmosphere ends at 300 miles so you have some gravity and will weight from 25 to 50 pounds. (Estimating)
My hypothesis is that you will way less than or about as much as half of your weight, since he is still in the atmosphere but very high up. 🙂
I think Jeff would not weigh Zero Pounds, but he would be around 1 to 8 pounds because the higher in the atmosphere he goes, the lighter he gets.
I believe that you will weigh either 0 pounds or close to 0 pounds because since you are in the Earth’s low orbit, then you will not weigh as much as you do on earth. Or you will lose a few pounds since you are higher up and you don’t have a stronger gravitational pull on you.
If “Jeff’s Mountain” really existed in this scenario, the person would just float away or would die before he got to the top. So if there was immortality and stuff, he would probably weigh about half because of microgravity.
I believe if he weighed 150 pounds on Earth, then I think he would weigh 30 pounds because there is not much gravity that far up in the Earth’s atmosphere.
My hypothesis is that I believe that Jeff’s weight will be reduced. The reason why I say that is because mass changes in space. His weight will be reduced because of the lack of gravity in space.
He will weigh less because there is no gravity pulling on him. He won’t be pulling towards the center of the earth so that will cause him to weigh less. I think he would weigh 20 to 30 pounds.
Honestly, I think he would weigh half of what he weighed on earth since he’s at the top of the mountain which is 260 miles in the air. That means he wouldn’t weigh the same, and he would weigh less than he did on earth.
I think he would still weigh the same because he is still in Earth’s atmosphere. He’s just at the top of a mountain and the gravitational force would still be the same.
Since he has left Earth’s atmosphere his weight will drop. His new weight would maybe be about 130 pounds, because of the micro gravity, he would not have his same weight. As his weight would be on Earth.
Even though the mountain doesn’t exist, he is 260 miles away from Earth. The Micro-gravity in space isn’t like the gravity here on earth. On earth, gravity pulls you down onto the scale, but in space as soon as you step on the scale, you will float up. Someone that weighs 150 pounds on earth would weigh 25 pounds in space
I think the he would weigh nothing. Where there is no gravity, objects or species weigh nothing.
he would be the same no matter what your weight dos not change. you are just floating
My hypothesis is that Jeff would weigh nothing, because in space, objects do not weigh anything.
I think that he would weigh half of what he weighs on Earth. Because you are so high up in the atmosphere. ♥♥♥♥
My hypothesis is that you will still weigh 150 pounds because it does not state in your question that YOU were in microgravity, therefore you would still weigh the same.
I think that he will weigh about half his weight or about 125 but this is unsure due to the fact that we do not know what the gravitational force is.
I think he would weigh the same because he still is connected to Earth’s gravity, and the gravitational pull would remain the same ♥•♥•♥
I think Jeff would weigh 15 pounds, this is because he is 260 miles away from sea level and there is very little gravity.
I think that he will weigh half as much because he is so high up in the atmosphere.♥
I think he would weigh about 20 pounds, because in outer space, things weigh differently than stuff on earth.
Jeff would weigh around one pound if he weighs 150 pounds and is on top of a 260 mile high mountain because the height of the mountain affects the weight of Jeff and if you divide the height by 150 you get about 1 pound.
i think that your weight will be different it will change due to the characteristics of the location
I think the higher you go the less gravity is pulling you down. If there is no gravity pulling you down then you become weightless.
I think Jeff will weigh a lot less than he did on earth .
on earth we have gravity pulling us down, which is called gravitational pull.
on Jeff’s peak its just a little gravitational pull.
so when he stand on the scale his weight will be different
I think that you will weigh nothing on Jeff’s Peak. Because at 260 miles up, you have exited the atmosphere, and the atmosphere has little to no gravity.
I think he would weigh 75 pounds because he would not have as much gravity holding him down so he would weigh less than he would if he was closer to the ground. Also, because 75 is half of 150.
I believe that he will weigh a lot less than what he does on Earth. He will at least weigh ten to twenty pounds on Jeff’s Peak.
I think that he will weigh a quarter of what he weighs on Earth because there is no gravity in space
i think he will weigh nothing because of micro gravity on the mountain
I believe that as you travel farther up in the atmosphere that gravity will start to slacken it’s hold on your body.