Friday, January 19, 2007

Galileo Experiment on the Moon

This video clip is definitely worth viewing if you haven't seen it already. It shows an experiment made by Apollo XV astronaut David Scott, concluding that Galileo was right. Objects fall at the same rate of speed in a complete vacuum due to the specific weight of gravity and the lack of atmospheric friction. Since the moon is in a vacuum of space, a feather and a hammer fall at the same rate of speed (the feather drops like a rock).

I'm not a "moon conspiracy theorist." I believe what the American government tells me and if they said they went to the moon, then they defied all the odds and went to the moon. I'm not even going to ask the obvious question, "So you went all the way to the moon to drop a feather and a hammer, but you didn't bother to take a picture of the stars?"

My question is this, after viewing the video: If the falcon feather drops as fast as the hammer, then why did the astronauts need so much weight to keep them from flying into space? Why did they bounce when they walked even though they were weighed down? Since the feather fell straight to the ground as it should in a vacuum, shouldn't the astronauts adhere the same way without the use of the additional weights?

Can someone set me straight on this?

Link