Note that this Challenge is covered as part of the program start Skype for your community’s Local Team of Mission 11 educators. These Skypes for the Mission 11 communities are being conducted by SSEP National Program Director Dr. Jeff Goldstein through Wednesday, September 21, 2016.
This blog post is for teachers in the 21 communities across the U.S. and Canada that just started SSEP Mission 11 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 11 students across the U.S. and Canada are thinking. Let’s use this blog post as a social media platform for sharing thoughts about microgravity.
The solution to the Challenge will be posted to this SSEP National Blog on Wednesday, September 21, 2016.
I’ve heard a lot about this weightlessness stuff, with astronauts having a great time floating around in space. It’s like they weigh nothing at all. 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 Wednesday, September 21, 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 here on September 21, 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 believe that he will be 150 lbs
I think he would weigh 32 lbs.
i think you will be 0 pounds
I think you will weigh 150lbs
i think he is going to be 0.4
i think you would be slightly lighter because since you are on top of the mountain you are near a space atsmophere your weight would slightly decrease.
i think you will be 3 pounds
the same weight you wayed befor.
I think he will way about 0 pounds
I think it will be 16% of your actual weight.
I think the answer is that you will weigh 120 or 130 lbs. because you are still anchored to the Earth, you are just really far away.
My guess is that in space you weight is the same but, the gravity is so small that it doesn’t matter. So you will just float even if you try to stay down.
I think that you will 110 pounds because the gravity pull on earth has no lift to put pressure on the ground in space has no wieght on the ground so sense you are not touching the ground will will be less weight .
I think you will weigh half your weight. 🙂 🙂 🙂
i believe that your weight would decrease because since you are on top of the mountain you are near a space atsmophere your weight would slightly decrease
30 pounds i need more characters
I think he will be 130
mabey about 0-10 ponds
I think that he will weigh half of the #150 pounds
i think he will be half his own weight.So he will weigh 75 pounds #space float
I think he will weigh 0 pounds.
i think he will weigh 50 pounds.
At the top of the jeffs peek Dr. Goldstein will weigh 0.1 pounds.
I think that his weigh will be 30%
In space, I think Dr. Jeff will weigh 30 lbs.
i think he well wigeth 20%
i think dr.jeff will weigh 0 pounds
i think he will be half his own weight.So he will weigh 75 pounds #space float
I think he would weigh 40 lbs . Your basicly in space so there’s no gravity .
i think he will be half his own weight.
i believe that Dr. Goldstein would weigh 150 pounds still because he is still on earth. Even if he is floating he would weigh 150 pounds because if you weigh 0 pounds you would die.
I think he would weight 0.06 pounds.
im guessing its half of of your weight.
he might weigh about 28 pounds if you might float
he would weigh same he ways because the gravitational pull would lift
i think you would weigh half your weight
i think his weight will be half of his weight now.
He will weight about 13 pounds
I think that you would weigh 135 pounds
I think he was 10 pounds
I belive you still are as heavy as you are but there’s barley any magnitism so your lighter.
I think that you would weigh 135 pounds
I think that you would weigh 135 pounds
I think he will weigh 135 pounds
I think that Dr. Goldstein would weigh 0 lbs
I think that he will weight about 30-40 pounds.
I think that you would weigh 135 pounds
I think he will weigh 67.48
I think 30 pounds
i say his weight was about 60 pounds