Force and Motion in Space

Force and Motion
By: Chris Anderson

For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. This is Newton's 3rd and probably most famous law. His laws apply to every thing, from you to the Sun. Most forces are apply by contact with an object such as pushing/pulling something, or lifting something but there are more than those. Things like gravitational forces and magnetic forces don't need to be in direct contact with an object to effect it.Every type of matter can produce a force as long as it has energy. Energy is the ability to do work. Friction and air resistance are two things that oppose motion. For example, when you run, you are creating friction on the ground by stepping on it, then you are pushing yourself of of the ground. On surfaces like ice however, they are very smooth and have little to no friction. So if you sent something on ice, it would keep going and going and going.

Researchers at Southern Methodist University have found new concepts in human running.When you are running, you are putting almost twice your body weight into the ground. Current methods for assessing patterns of ground force application require expensive in-ground force platforms or force treadmills. Additionally, the links between the motions of an athlete's body parts and ground forces have previously been difficult to reduce to basic and accurate explanations. But what if you were in space? More specifically, on the Moon. Weight is tied to gravity and the Moon has 1/6 the amount of gravity Earth has. So you would weight 1/6 as much. If you weight 120 pounds on Earth, you would weight 20 pounds on the Moon cause increased jump height and slower moving speed.

Hopefully, more researchers can perform experiments on running, jumping, and anything else that has to deal with force and motion and the human body because it is very fascinating. Also, when we do send people to Mars, we should see our our physics apply there and vice versa.Who knows, we could find out that we have been wrong all this time and that completely different system governs force and motion in the universe. But only time will tell.