Photo of laptops in zero gravity

jhoug

#1 – 9:10 AM September 6, 2009

The better question is what would be the best design for a "laptop" for use in zero G? The laptop is designed around gravity, tables, laps, transportability, overhead light sources and whatnot.

Slurpy

#2 – 9:26 AM September 6, 2009

Sorry, I have to go uber-nerd here:

It's micro-g, not zero-g.

There, I managed to avoid any profanity. Now I'm going to go drown a puppy to burn off the excess frustration.

lawonthestreet

#3 – 12:42 PM September 6, 2009

At least it won't overheat!
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aboyne

#4 – 2:12 PM September 6, 2009

So did nobody actually watch more than one minute of that video? It's clearly not a silent video. They talk for a good three minutes of it throughout.

jerwin

#5 – 3:55 PM September 6, 2009

At least it won't overheat? Don't be so certain. On earth, heat rises, and engineers can take advantage of that fact. In a microgravity environment, heat does no such thing. Convection ovens are a must.

Anonymous Anonymous

#6 – 6:31 PM September 6, 2009

Micro Gravity**

There's still gravity, but very little.

/pedantic

Adam

#7 – 12:07 AM September 7, 2009

FFS can we please de-regulate space flight and exploration so we can get on with colonizing the universe already? 40-50 years of this nonsense and we still haven't stepped out of our front yard and met the neighbors. 50 years after flight was pioneered we had commercial flights and flattened the world - what is the hold up here?

turbogeezer

#8 – 12:15 AM September 7, 2009

Please repeat after me... There is no zero gravity. Gravity is everywhere. These guys and their happy laptops are in freefall.
(Sorry for the crank, but I've seen the Zero G phrase once too many times.)

orwellian

#9 – 6:50 PM September 7, 2009

You know, I don't think any of those laptops were Macbooks. I just assumed that NASA wouldn't buy Windows. Come to think of it, though, I would hope NASA would run on linux.

In space, no one can hear you ctrl+alt+del

dculberson

#10 – 6:49 AM September 8, 2009

TurboGeezer, but if the sum of forces on you is zero, isn't that zero G? (And if not, why?)

Enochrewt

#11 – 11:32 AM September 8, 2009

#5: They could be linux, it's not so easy to tell these days.

#6: As a layman, I understand it as everything has gravity. If the guy smiling in the picture stood in the same place long enough with that laptop floating in front of him, eventually the gravity of his body would pull the laptop to it. hat's also assuming he's the object with the largest mass in the closest proximity to the laptop.

Moriarty

#12 – 1:56 PM September 8, 2009

"TurboGeezer, but if the sum of forces on you is zero, isn't that zero G? (And if not, why?)"

The sum of the forces on them is not zero. The Earth's gravity is about 90% as strong on the ISS as on Earth. They are accelerating constantly, in freefall, which is why they go in circles instead of a straight line. It simulates zero gravity, though.

As for your question, the difference would be in gravitational potential, or "how deep in a gravity well you are," which has various relativistic effects, which on the ISS are unnoticeable but measurable.

turbogeezer

#13 – 9:59 AM September 9, 2009

#10: dculberson, Here's another way to look at it...
If there's no gravity, what's keeping them in orbit?
There're falling, just like an elevator with a broken cable and no brakes. But they're falling *around* the planet, rather than down. And Moriarty is correct - it simulates Zero G.