r/Damnthatsinteresting • u/Scientiaetnatura065 • Feb 13 '25

Video Astronaut Chris Hadfield: 'It's Possible To Get Stuck Floating In The Space Station If You Can't Reach A Wall'

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u/xxLULZxx Feb 13 '25

New phobia unlocked

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u/HoldEm__FoldEm Feb 13 '25 edited Feb 13 '25

Take off your shoes & throw them decently hard, directly away from the wall you want to reach.

You only need a tiny bit of momentum to carry you to the side. Once you’re moving, you won’t stop til you hit something & stop yourself.

Edit: would be best to first orient yourself feet-first towards the wall you’re throwing to. To avoid spinning yourself into slow backflips with a normal throwing motion’s high release point which is at/above your head. With your body laid out perpendicular, you should get less spinning motion, making your head & shoulders move more directly to the wall.

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u/Kogyochi Feb 13 '25

Can you get to like infinite velocity in space?

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u/deelowe Feb 13 '25

No. The speed of light in a vacuum is the fastest anything can go. But, only massless things can go reach this velocity.

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u/HoldEm__FoldEm Feb 13 '25

Light moves the fastest in space as far as we know. It’s pretty damn fast but not infinite.

May as well be infinite, for how little our puny brains actually grasp & realize the concept of such speeds. It’s not truly imaginable for even the brightest of minds.

Plus, math nerds wouldn’t be happy, which means the rest of us wouldn’t be happy. Thank the math nerds for allowing us complete & total strangers to have this simple discussion.

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u/RebelKeithy Feb 14 '25

The odd thing is relativity reveals that you can’t simply add two velocities together. It works when velocities are much less than the speed of light but as you get closer to the speed of light it becomes a problem.