NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson has been on the International Space Station since l

Question

NASA astronaut Peggy Whitson has been on the International Space Station since last November, and recently had her stay extended for 3 additional months past when she was expected to return to Earth. Playing around in her new-found free time, she takes a tennis ball of mass 0.058 kg and tosses it forward with a speed of 1.0 ra/s. Then she fires a softball of mass 0.20 kg and covered in velcro at it at 5.0 m/s in the same direction. The two balls collide and stick in a perfectly inelastic one-dimensional collision. What is the final speed?

Explanation / Answer

Let the final velocity be V m/s

by the conservation of momentum we have

m1u1 + m2u2 = (m1 + m2 ) *V

0.058*1 + 0.2*5 = (0.2 + 0.058 ) *V

V = 4.1 m/s

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