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Without constant exercise, astronauts who spend too much time in zero-G couldn’t survive a return to Earth.Įngineers have developed concepts for rotating space habitats to recreate the effects of gravity. Without gravity, our hearts grow weaker, our bones get thinner, and our entire cardiovascular system diminishes. This is important because a constant gravitational pull is vitally important for maintaining healthy bodies.

Once in space, we have some methods available to simulate the effects of gravity. If you want to escape the gravitational clutches of the Earth altogether, you must achieve a speed of at least 25,000 mph (15,570 km/h), which is around 33 times the speed of sound. Most of the energy that we put into rockets doesn’t go into getting to space, it goes into staying in space. So, unless you keep accelerating, eventually gravity will pull you back. Even at the edge of the atmosphere and the beginnings of space, Earth’s gravitational pull isn’t much weaker than what it is on the surface. After all, the edge of space is just 62 miles (100 kilometers) away and shooting something straight up for that distance is not the hardest thing to do in the world.īut gravity does have a superpower. Going further, it’s not all that difficult to defy gravity and get into space. Even stronger magnets, using superconductors, can levitate entire train cars, enabling super fast transportation that floats above the track. The magnetic force can keep an object suspended on the side of your fridge for eternity. Naturally, eventually you’ll get tired and put the pencil down, but we do have other methods to magically overcome the strength of gravity. The whole mass of the Earth is pulling on you, but you can reach over and grab a pencil and overcome that entire gravitational might.

Gravity is so weak that even if it were a billion times stronger than it is now, it would still be the weakest of all the forces. But the annoying thing about gravity is that it’s both persistent and has an infinite range, which takes a surprising amount of work to overcome. It’s simple to defy gravity: just lift something in the air. The gravitational force is by far the weakest of the four forces of nature.