Reality TV "Astronauts" Lift Off 644
RJG writes "In the latest reality show on British TV, three British "space tourists" last night succesfully blasted off on a five day mission and are currently orbiting the earth 200 miles up. Or so they think. And to forestall the first question. They aren't experiencing weightlessness due to a combination of being in a low orbit (rather than outer space where the weightlessness is) and a few under-floor gravity generators."
Re:Just wait (Score:3, Informative)
How to find people that gullible (Score:5, Informative)
In order for the hoax to stand a realistic chance of succeeding, the Cadets would have to remain unaware of the true nature of the show, even given any production mistakes and implausible explanations. As such, a strict set of criteria were applied to filter out inappropriate applicants:
The intention was to obtain a group of Cadets who were highly gullible, conformist, and ignorant about the show's subject matter; and also ideally suited to appearing in a Reality TV show (e.g. uninhibited extroverts, "wacky personalities", or characters otherwise able to capture the public interest).
Re:Big Brother Space Edition... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:gravity generators? (Score:3, Informative)
Wow! (Score:4, Informative)
No. Gravity is everywhere. The "weightlessness" is an artifact of being in an orbit. The Earth is pulling you down, but you are also moving perpendicular to the Earth's surface, so the ground falls away from you with the curve of the Earth. It's free fall. You just fall continuously over the horizon. It's falling with style, to quote Buzz Lightyear. ;-)
Build a stationary tower with it's top floor at the level of a space orbit, and you'll just feel the Earth's gravity.
That's how the shuttle gets back down. They do a burn to cut their velocity and start falling toward the Earth instead of over the horizon. Such is the way of all orbits. Move faster to get to a higher orbit. Move slower to get to a lower orbit.
Re:To qualify, participants... (Score:4, Informative)
Here are the deeply patronising contestant profiles from the Channel Four [channel4.com] web site:
Andrew is a student who lives at home with his parents. He's good looking and confident, and describes himself as funny, intelligent, charming and considerate. One of his luckiest moments was going out with the prettiest girl in his primary school.
Andrew finds the R Kelly track 'I Believe I Can Fly' inspirational because it gives him self-belief and makes him feel he can do anything.
He is a keen Arsenal fan and plays football in a local league - but that's not his only interest: he also confesses to being a church attendee but sadly he only mimes the words to the hymns, as he doesn't know the words.
Andrew is also scared of moths.
Astrid is looking for some real excitement in her life. She's a pretty blonde from Mid Glamorgan, who went to school in Cardiff with pop chick Charlotte Church. She now lives in the sticks, so can't hit the town every night.
Astrid works in a call centre, and has had five different jobs this year but still doesn't know what she wants to do. In fact, she wants to do everything! She's also quite clumsy and has a habit of losing mobile phones. Like her old school chum Charlotte, she also likes to sing, but suffers from stagefright and can only perform in front of her family.
Astrid's had a boyfriend for the last 6 months and claims she has lots of friends. She's an adventurous girl who dreams of riding in a Formula 1 car. She gets annoyed by two-faced people and hates seeing others being picked on.
Billy is one for the ladies. He is a semi-pro footballer and his ultimate ambition is a to be a footballer or film star. He realises he's too old for professional football but there is still time to hit Hollywood. He describes himself as tall, dark and handsome, funny, outgoing, polite and caring but also one of the lads.
Billy loves the film Armageddon, hates spiders and the idea of drowning and says his most embarrassing moment was when his ex girlfriend's dad witnessed him walking down the catwalk in a red silk thong. He believes in reincarnation and wants to return as a golden eagle. Billy does not believe in ghosts but claims to have seen an alien.
Cheryl is a lively, ambitious and opinionated girl who loves people. She is also impatient and hates being alone. A firm believer in fate, she believes in reincarnation and ghosts - she says a guardian angel visited her when she was aged sixteen. She fears drowning and fire but feels that taking part in a 'thrill-seekers' show will give her the chance to do something unique.
Cheryl describes herself as a typical, up-for-it 23 year old girl. She hates liars and smoking, and enjoys clubbing with her friends, clothes and relaxing in a bath with a glass of wine.
Keri's so keen on space travel that her ultimate fancy dress outfit is dressing up as an astronaut. She describes herself as a friendly, outgoing girl who will try anything once, and compares herself to Bridget Jones. She's also a team player - as long as the team wins! Her fears include drowning and spiders, and she never, ever wants to free-fall into water or sing in front of a group of people.
Keri's strangest job was dressing up as a human eyeball to promote Specsavers. Other unusual achievements include being able to put her fist in her mouth.
Things Keri likes include Christmas, white-knuckle rides, family, friends, holidays, romance and chocolate.
Louise is sporty and competitive and represents her county in basketball and athletics. She lived in Canada for ten months, and admits to being afraid of
No, we haven't... (Score:5, Informative)
Excellent UK forum to get yourselves up to speed. (Score:2, Informative)
I usually hate reality TV shows, but this one has me hooked, maybe because we have done the fantasic ATX http://www.kennedyspacecenter.com/visitKSC/atx.as
BTW, they are either the stupidest people ever.. or brilliant actors.
Jonathan
Oscar The Grouch Does California, Nevada & Arizona - http://www.mccormackj.fsnet.co.uk/oscarthegrouch [fsnet.co.uk]
Re:Wow! (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, not true. As you move away from the center of the earth, the speed of a circular free falling orbit approaches ground speed of the earth's rotation.
Space elevators capitalise on this. So do geosynchronous sattelites.
If you built a stationary tower on the equator and the top floor was at GEO, you would be weightless. In fact, when they build such a thing, it will be a bit higher than that; higher than GEO and you experience acceleration AWAY from earth. The space elevator will capitalise on this, using tension to hold the elevator in balance (rather than resting on the crust of the earth)
If you built such a tower anywhere else on earth you would experience precession directly - the only force you would feel would be due to the fact that your orbit isn't circular - your "weight" would no longer be attracted to the earth beneath your feet, but rather towards the equator.
Re:America has officially lost its monopoly on stu (Score:3, Informative)
Two points to the winner!
I'm surprised no one else had said it..
Now, where exactly would they find something of sufficent mass and density to simulate 1G on something the size of the space shuttle? They wouldn't, and actually be able to move it.
But hey, if they want to believe, they will.
When I was a kid, I went to Space Academy at the Huntsville Space and Rocket center, twice. It was fun. It was geared more towards beginners, but still, it was fun.
Someone else linked This Page [coolsmartphone.com], which shows that the folks in the simulation aren't regular kids being fooled. They're actors being paid to act like they believe the whole thing.
The simulation sounds really cool though, if it's as realistic as their site portrays.
Re:No, we haven't... (Score:5, Informative)
So it still could possibly go either way.
Re:The joke is on all of you. (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.blood.co.uk/pages/flashAdvert5L.htm [blood.co.uk]
And here's the guy's profile:
http://channel4.com/entertainment/tv/microsites/S
Oooh, it's the *same guy*, who'd have thought? (Incidentally, some friends met him at the Wickerman festival & said he was a thoroughly nice chap. And an actor.)
It's obviously exactly what you say, the next generation of reality show, but probably not quite so simple in that I think they KNOW that plants will be exposed, so plan on playing this out in the media for as much hype as possible. This does then imply that there must then be at least one REAL contestant who is blissfully unaware of all this (i.e. not the sharpest tool in the box) who gets to be "Truman".
Personally I'd prefer it if Channel 4 actually spent money on a decent programming instead of throwing their money at Endemol for crap like this. At least we've got the BBC, eh?
Re:The "Casting Call" episodes must be the best (Score:3, Informative)
A high school nearby me is doing this now. [k12.mo.us]
Re:The "Casting Call" episodes must be the best (Score:3, Informative)
You know, I saw several people make this kind of statement. Up until now I was able to resist the urge, but I just couldn't do it any more. Low orbit does have gravity. What do you think keeps you IN ORBIT instead of just wisking off into the nether? Its called micro-gravity. Gravity doesn't just stop, it dwindles. I'm not a physicist so I can't be 100% certain about this part, but I THINK you are affected by gravity no matter where you go, out between the galaxies you would still have some gravitational attraction to large masses, like the galaxies itself. So, technically, you could never make the statement "so and so has no gravity".
Eh, back to work with me.
Re:Wow! (Score:3, Informative)
See e.g. http://www.freemars.org/jeff/speed/ [freemars.org]
Re:America has officially lost its monopoly on stu (Score:5, Informative)
I read an article about this show before it aired. They did intensive physiological tests on the contestants to ensure they chose people who were susceptible to suggestion. These people actually turned out to be of *higher* than average intelligence.
Intelligence is not necessarily knowledge of how a spacecraft might behave. They're probably not geeks like us, so they probably have no idea of the state of space technology.
Re:The "Casting Call" episodes must be the best (Score:4, Informative)
Actually, I'm very very wrong. Hopefully, I've managed to reply to my post before it gets modded up +5 Informative.
According to what I've just looked up (here [wikipedia.org]), Low Earth Orbit isn't high enough to cause feelings of weightlessness. The sensation is caused by being in free-fall as I described - you are falling, but you keep overshooting due to your speed.
So basically, I'm wrong. On the plus side, I've just learnt something.
Re:The "Casting Call" episodes must be the best (Score:4, Informative)
The "gravity" we feel standing on solid ground is simply the difference between what acceleration we should be experiencing and what we actually are experiencing. Acceleration due to gravity on the earth's surface is roughly 9.8 m/s^2. When you're actually accelerating at that rate, you feel weightless. It is only because we're not accelerating at all (when at rest with regards to the surface of the earth) that we feel weight.
An object in orbit is in free fall. There is no force opposing the force of gravity, so that object accelerates freely. If it has sufficient lateral inertia, it will continue to accelerate towards the earth's center but will continually fall around it.
That feeling you get when the roller coaster starts going down due to gravity? That's semi-weightlessness. There's a plane called the "Vomit Comet" that uses a similar concept: fly up really high, and dive with an acceleration of 9.8 m/s^2. The plane's path looks like a parabola, and as long as it's in free fall, the passengers experience "weightlessness."
The parent's mistake is assuming that an object in orbit, no matter how low, would feel weight. By definition, an object in orbit is in free fall, accelerating towards the center of the earth at the normal acceleration of gravity. This is countered by a lateral velocity of sufficient magnitude to prevent the object from actually colliding with the earth. An object in free fall feels no weight, because there is no force opposing its acceleration.
Sorry. People who misunderstand physics are a pet peeve of mine.
</pedantic>
Re:No, we haven't... (Score:5, Informative)
as pointed out [coolsmartphone.com], the participants are really actors, and the hoax is on you.
Re:Wow! (Score:4, Informative)
If you built a tower at LEO (low earth orbit) and stood at the top you would definitely feel gravity... pretty much the same gravity as on the surface, as you are not that much higher up, compared to the Earth's radius.
It is only if you built a tower to the height of a geosynchronous orbit (far, far higher) that you would feel weightless. And this is only because the (apparent, I know) centrifugal force of the rotation of the earth. On a non-rotating earth, you could never build a tower high enough to escape Earth's gravity.
Or put another way, on one of the Earth's poles you could never build a tower high enough to escape Earth's gravity. Even one the height of a geosynchronous orbit.
yo.
Re:The "Casting Call" episodes must be the best (Score:1, Informative)
you'll be in permanent freefall towards earth thanks to gravity, but should be doing so at the same speed as the spacecraft you're in, such that it always seems like
Re:The "Casting Call" episodes must be the best (Score:3, Informative)
The shuttle and ISS both operate in LEO. Being in orbit, any orbit, necessitates being in freefall.
Re:To qualify, participants... (Score:2, Informative)