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Space Exploration

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    $\begingroup$ Between Earth and Mars it's still free-fall."The answer is always free-fall" (except when it's "thermal control") $\endgroup$ Commented Jul 19, 2021 at 0:31
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    $\begingroup$ 'Weightlessness experienced' is always caused by the same thing: not undergoing acceleration or being supported by the planet's surface. $\endgroup$ Commented Jul 19, 2021 at 0:32
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    $\begingroup$ The second to last paragraph is key. You don't feel gravity, your body has nothing that's not affected by gravity which it could compare itself against. You only feel the planet (or a spacecraft) pushing you away from the path through spacetime you would otherwise take. If nothing's doing that, you're in freefall. Freefall's no more or less "real" if you're on a suborbital trajectory that will hit Earth's surface before it completes an orbit, in Earth orbit, in solar or galactic orbit, or in some intergalactic void, unbound to any galaxy cluster, supercluster, etc. $\endgroup$ Commented Jul 19, 2021 at 2:13
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    $\begingroup$ @SproutCoder the weightlessness experienced between Earth and Mars would be different - instead of free-falling around Earth, you're free-falling around the sun. If you did the same between Sol and Proxima Centari, you would be free-falling around the galactic core. Between the Milky Way and Andromeda, you'd be free-falling around the center of the galactic cluster. "The answer is always free-fall". $\endgroup$ Commented Jul 19, 2021 at 6:03
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    $\begingroup$ Ok then you all for clarifying. I was obsessing over the planetary gravitational pull vs. free-fall but I understand there's not such distinction. $\endgroup$ Commented Jul 19, 2021 at 9:08