Director Rachel Talalay has hired you to check the physics in her upcoming. spac

Question

Director Rachel Talalay has hired you to check the physics in her upcoming. space-based thriller No One Can Hear You Scream. In one scene, the lead astronaut. Dr. Amy Osgood has her safety line to the space shuttle disconnected while she is on a space walk. The shuttle is 100 meters away from Amy drifting away at speed of 1 m/s. She finds that her thruster pack has been damaged and no longer works She only has 3 nunutes of air and can hold her breath for about one extra minute after that. To get back to the shuttle, she decides to unstrap her 15-kg thruster pack and throw it away so that it has a speed of 8 m/s. In the script. she survives, but is this correct? Her mass, including space suit , is 80 kg.

Explanation / Answer

let m1 = 15 kg( thruster mass)

m2 = 80 kg ( her mass)

Apply momentum conservation

initial momentum = final momentum

0 = m1*v1 + m2*v2

v2 = -m1*v1/m2

= -15*8/80

= -1.5 m/s

so the person moves with speed 1.5 m/s in opposite to the direction of thruster.

distance travelled by the person in 4 min, d_pesron = 4*60*1.5

= 360

distance moved by space shuttle in 4 min = 4*60

= 240 m

so, after 4min distance between her initial point and shuttle = 100 + 340

= 340 m

clearly, distance travelled by her > distance between shuttle and her

The script is correct. She survives <<<<<<----------Answer

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