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Old 11-22-2009, 04:47 PM   #16 (permalink)
Willravel
... a sort of licensed troubleshooter.
 
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ratbastid View Post
Newton's third law most certainly does NOT go out the window in a microgravity environment. If it did, the Shuttle's navigation thrusters could never put it in a docking posture with the IIS, among other things. In fact, without gravity to add an extra vector of acceleration to the equation, the action-and-reaction behavior gets pretty straightforward.
I suppose I could have been more clear. What I mean to say is that when hips meet in thrust, unless you've got computers and servos in place to ensure that there's equilibrium in place, you're really going to need to brace yourself well, much better than you might on earth. I can just imagine a thrust simply kocking two naked astronauts towards opposite directions of the "mating pod". The newton's third law thing was more about colorful language than anything else.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ratbastid View Post
I don't know if it's any different on a cellular level, but I still suspect that a sperm-tail flagellating in the air isn't going to work too well for propulsion. Sperm evolved to swim in fluids.
They did, but they also developed to swim upstream and through some interesting obstacles. In zero gravity, I'd not be surprised of the flagellum could operate, if not as effectively, similarly to how it normally works in liquid. Anyway, this is all postulation until I get my billion dollars.

Good use of flagellating, btw.
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