Orbital Mechanics Simulator

Partners in Trajectory
By Camille

Today at space camp Cole and I worked together on as simulator call "Trajectory". We were involved in performing a motion experiment. We both sat in chairs that were hooked to two long poles that were bolted to a flat spinning wheel. The wheel had no power so it sat still unless you were spun or knew about motion and could get it going. He experiment was for us to throw balls to each other while we were spinning. This sounds very simple until you actually try it. The tricky part of this experiment was to learn how far a head of your partner you had to throw the ball so that they could catch it. This was just like sending a rocket to another planet out in space. The thing that makes this so hard is that the chair is traveling faster that the ball that you throw is traveling. During the experiment I had a great feeling of excitement because I wanted to see how the balls would travel even before we threw the first ball. The end result of our experiment and our training is that if you throw the ball just far enough ahead you can catch it. Next we threw two balls each of us at the same time ant that was twice as difficult. When we were done I found out that my experience was very much fun.