Falling in low-G. Forum: Spacesettlers
Thread: Falling in low-G.
# 7936 byhappygallimore@... on May 25, 2006, 7:22 p.m.
Member since 2021-10-03
From: Xenophile
To: spacesettlers@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, May 24, 2006 3:51:23 PM
Subject: [spacesettlers] Falling in low-G.
suggests that terminal velocity *is* less if gravity is lower. Clarke
is a pretty sharp guy, and this sort of thing is, well, his sort of thing.
"So I'm going to ask again. I'm even going to post a link to a post
about this same sort of thing on a group dedicated to the Barsoom
stories of Edgar Rice Burroughs. If Rick is wrong, it looks like
Clarke is too. Of course, Clarke can be wrong, I suppose, but...
It has been some time since reading Rama, but Clarke did explain why a person could fall a couple hundred meters to water and no die on impact. Too bad I don't remember what that explanation was...
Perhaps the reason is that Rama had gravity by inertia, not by mass (like Earth and Moon). With angular momentum, accelerating during the fall is less an issue than differences in velocity. Therefore, relative peripheral speeds dominate landing forces.
As for falling on the moon... would an umbrella work?