A couple of astronauts agree to rendezvous in space after hours. Their plan is to let gravity bring them together. One of them has a mass of 65 kg and the other a mass of 72 kg, and they start from rest 20.0 m apart. (a) Make a free-body diagram of each astronaut, and use it to find his or her initial acceleration. As a rough approximation, we can model the astronauts as uniform spheres. (b) If the astronauts' acceleration remained constant, how many days would they have to wait before reaching each other? (Careful! They both have acceleration toward each other.) (c) Would their acceleration, in fact, remain constant? If not, would it increase or decrease? Why?

A couple of astronauts agree to rendezvous in space after hours. Their plan is to let gravity bring them together. One of them has a mass of 65 kg and the other a mass of 72 kg, and they start from rest 20.0 m apart. (a) Make a free-body diagram of each astronaut, and use it to find his or her initial acceleration. As a rough approximation, we can model the astronauts as uniform spheres. (b) If the astronauts' acceleration remained constant, how many days would they have to wait before reaching each other? (Careful! They both have acceleration toward each other.) (c) Would their acceleration, in fact, remain constant? If not, would it increase or decrease? Why?

University Physics Volume 1

18th Edition

ISBN:9781938168277

Author:William Moebs, Samuel J. Ling, Jeff Sanny

Publisher:William Moebs, Samuel J. Ling, Jeff Sanny

Chapter9: Linear Momentum And Collisions

Section: Chapter Questions

Problem 9.1CYU: Check Your Understanding The U.S. Air Force uses “10gs” (an acceleration equal to 109.8m/s2 ) as the...

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