# Artificial gravity on rotating spaceship? Tags: classical-mechanics, gravity, rotation - Score: 31 - Views: 12059 - Answers: 5 - Answered: yes - Asked by: SuperCiocia (25823 rep) - Asked: 2014-05-12 - Site: physics ## Question One of the possible ways to simulate gravity in outer space is to have a rotating spaceship, so that the centrifugal force experienced provides a gravity-like force. My question is: shouldn't this only work when our feet are touching the floor of the spaceship? Only in that case the floor is providing a contact force to balance the centrifugal force. If we jumped, there is no gravity within the spacecraft so what is it that would make us come back down? Also: imagine we had a shower: what would make the water fall down? ## Answers ### Answer by DumpsterDoofus (score: 47 [ACCEPTED]) If you jumped "straight up", you would still have a horizontal component of velocity (relative to a nonrotating frame), so you would still end up coming "back down". Likewise, the shower water is moving horizontally in a nonrotating frame, which makes it collide with the floor eventually (since the floor is curving upwards in the nonrotating frame). But to a person on