Consider a keen little boy who is having a wagon race with a friend. He starts from rest and
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Answer:
a) m = 69.0 kg
b) release some gas in the opposite direction to the astronaut's movement
Explanation:
a) Let's use Newton's second law
F = m a
m = F / a
m = 60.0 / 0.870
m = 69.0 kg
b) when we exert a force on the astronaut it acquires a momentum po, as the astronaut system plus spacecraft is isolated, the momentum is conserved
p₀ = p_f
m v = M v '
v ’=
so we see that the ship is moving backwards, but since the mass of the ship is much greater than the mass of the astronaut, the speed of the ship is very small.
One method to avoid this effect is to release some gas in the opposite direction to the astronaut's movement so that the initial momentum of the astronaut plus the gas is zero and therefore no movement is created in the spacecraft.