MosesKnows said — “This statement puzzles me. What force would cause the tool bag to float away?”
And then you said — “I don’t understand that either. Why doesn’t that force push the tool bag towards the astronaut? Or go straight up or straight down? Why don’t they have a leash on everything? Was this really an accident? Why doesn’t it stay in orbit? Shouldn’t it take off into infinity? If the tool bag falls to Earth why doesn’t the space station, too? Was the tool bag looking for Joe the Plumber?”
Well, as I was saying before, there is a scenario where no force needed to be applied, if the bag was traveling along with the astronaut and the astronaut didn’t hold it when he (or she) stopped. There would need to be no additional force applied to it (in that kind of scenario) for it to “float away”....
BUT, that’s not what happened from the video that was referenced here in this thread.
Here’s what the video shows... The astronaut was wiping grease off her gloves and picking out other things in the bigger bag that she had (which had the other items in it. It appeared that she was anchored and that the bigger bag was anchored. And so, when she took out the tool bag, out of the bigger bag (to apparently get it out of the way from some other stuff in the bigger bag [you know..., like “unloading some items out of your luggage”], she set it over to the side and reached back into the bigger bag. However, she gave it enough motion to not be within reaching distance when she reached back for it. In other words, it “floated away” from her at about (roughly) 1 MPH (my guess, from the looks of it, considering “walk speed is about 3 MPH). That’s a speed relative to her position.
It doesn’t matter if the speed is 1/4 MPH or 1 MPH or 2 MPH, it’s all going to result in greater and greater distance from her in a short matter of time. It was just a couple of seconds and it was *already* out of her reach, and she couldn’t grab it.
So, in this particular example, it was the astronaut that gave the tool bag some “force” — in bringing it out of the bigger bag, but not stopping the motion of the tool bag when she let go of it. So, she gave it enough motion to be traveling at about 1 MPH away from her, and it was quickly out of her reach.
Of course, she probably thought she had stopped its motion (relative to her) enough to be able to grab it again and put it back into the bigger bag. However, it appears that she was frustrated because of the grease that had gotten all over things and was in the process of wiping off the excess grease that was all over the place and then gave it just a “tad too much” motion to be able to grab it again, before it got out of the range of her arm.
You can tell she was frustrated (with the grease, presumably) because she kind of “jerked” the tool bag out of there and let go of it. But, then she almost immediately realized the tool bag had too much speed (away from her) and she grabbed for it again. And she almost got the strap in her hands but missed it. She grabbed about three times, it appeared.
Her words as it was floating away was, “Oh Great!” ... LOL...
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Your question was — “Why doesn’t that force push the tool bag towards the astronaut? Or go straight up or straight down?”
The “force” was her hand, and the motion of her hand when she grabbed the tool bag out of the bigger bag was away from her (like unloading a bag, to get to the other stuff out) — like she was trying to do. So, just imagine that you’re unloading your bag and you pick a smaller bag out of your bigger bag and put it over to your side (which she did) — and in space, the motion (from the “force” of her hand) causes it to “float away” — relative to her position.
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You asked — “Or go straight up or straight down?”
It’s going to go in the direction that she moved it — and stay moving in that same direction, relative to herself (which was away from herself, and she was attached to the space station, so it was also moving away from her position on the space station.
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You asked — “Why don’t they have a leash on everything?”
The did have a lease on several things, and they might have had one on that bag, too — but — she was trying to get it out of the bigger bag to get (apparently) something else in the bigger bag and gave it “too much force” — causing it to move faster away from her, and out of her range of motion with her arms, than the time she allowed to reach out for it again — and grab it once more. Once you see it, you’ll see it was very typical for what anyone would do, especially if they were frustrated with grease all over the place, when you’ve got a job to do....
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And then you asked — “Was this really an accident?”
From looking at it, it was obviously an accident.
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You also asked — “Why doesn’t it stay in orbit?”
It will stay in orbit for a while (fairly long while), until the friction up there slows it down so that its orbit decays and drops it into lower and lower orbits and it finally burns up.
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And then you asked — “Shouldn’t it take off into infinity?”
If it’s in orbit (which it is) it would take a lot more force to either raise it to a higher orbit or finally exceed the gravitational pull of the earth (and perhaps be captured by the gravitational pull of some other body) and/or then fly out into so-called “infinity”.... LOL... There’s nothing to apply that force, so it will simply remain in that orbit and friction will cause the orbit to decay until it burns up in the atmosphere.
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And finally you asked — “If the tool bag falls to Earth why doesn’t the space station, too?”
They keep applying “force” to it, to keep it in that orbit, otherwise, it would do the same thing as the tool bag is going to do.
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And there you have it....
Yes, we sure do have it! Thanks for taking the time to explain this to the Peanut Gallery! I did not know the part about her wiping grease. Good thing she wasn’t out there stuffing the turkey.
Ignoring the nonsensical response that no force was required in favor of reviewing the "forces" that did exist yields the following.
Force = she took out the tool bag
Force = she set it over to the side
Force = she gave it enough motion
Summary = it was the astronaut that gave the tool bag some “force”