• Question: when you are i a space craft and suddenly you take a sudden and sharp right or left turn, would you get thrown across the space cabin? ( is there G-force in space?)

    Asked by mantha to Adam, Catherine, Karen, Leila, Nazim on 14 Mar 2012.
    • Photo: Adam Stevens

      Adam Stevens answered on 12 Mar 2012:

      The simple answer is yes.

      The real answer is that you can’t suddenly take a sharp left or right in space! If you are moving in one direction you will carry on in that direction unless you use your engines to stop. So if you tried to turn sharply left you would end up going diagonally.

      But when spacecraft fire their engines, they put a force on the spacecraft. Due to Newton’s 1st law this force is passed on to things inside the spacecraft. So when they fire their thrusters the astronauts can feel it.

      However, the forces are very small because they don’t need to use much in space, so it ends up being far less than 1G. The only time astronauts feel high G forces are during launch and re-entry (re-entry is the worst, they can get up to 10Gs!)

    • Photo: Leila Battison

      Leila Battison answered on 12 Mar 2012:

      I love how the crew of Star Trek are always being thrown across the bridge for one reason or another. That’s usually because something has hit them or they have been grabbed by a tractor beam… So if something else caused the spaceship to move suddenly, yes, you would be thrown in the opposite direction, just like if you were on a bus and you crashed.

      But like Adam says, it would be very difficult to get those forces yourself, because there is nothing to push against. Think about how much harder it would be to swim in air, than swim in water!

    • Photo: Nazim Bharmal

      Nazim Bharmal answered on 14 Mar 2012:

      In theory, yes because it is the same as being in a car. When you are going fast, like on a motorway and you brake hard then you get pushed forwards. Or when you around a roundabout, you get pushed outwards in your seat.

      The same thing happens in space. But usually spacecraft have to move slowly and carefully because there is no friction so if you run out of fuel then you can’t stop. Usually there aren’t any sudden movements, so we never see it in reality except when you are going into space or coming back. Then there can be a lot of sudden movements and you have to build satellites so they are strong enough for those g-forces.

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