Simon is writing a story about an astronaut whose spacecraft has been boarded by space pirates. the astronaut has her lucky penny in her hand behind her back as the space pirates break into the control room. she has just locked the controls so that the ship is accelerating in the direction of the control room’s ceiling. simon wants the astronaut to use the penny to hit a button on the control panel to turn off the lights and escape. the button is located a short distance behind and below the astronaut’s hands. how should simon use the theory of relativity to describe what the astronaut must do in order to hit the button?

Oct 27, 2015 - In The Martian, astronaut Mark Watney and his crewmates onboard ... is grossly unqualified to challenge the science behind The Martian. ... of Space on the Law of the Sea, that Treaty has thus far been signed by only a handful of nations, none of which have their own ability to launch astronauts into space ...

air exerts forces on falling objects near earth’s surface.

explanation:

the term 'free falls' refer to object that are falling towards the earth, in a situation in which gravity is the only force acting on the object.

for an object in free fall, the acceleration is constant (g, the gravitational acceleration), and so the velocity of the object constantly increases.

for objects near earth's surface, there is always another force acting on the object: the resistance due to the air. this force is opposed to the direction of fall of the object, and it is proportional to the velocity of the object, so as the object falls down, this force increases up to a point when it balances the force of gravity, and the object continues its motion at constant velocity (called terminal velocity). since in this case gravity is not the only force acting on the object, we are not in a situation of free fall.