# Orbiting in space (free fall) and centripetal force?

So basically astronauts are weightless b/c they are free falling. But to get to that state they need to be moving real fast. So why doesn't that speed along with the centripetal force affect them?

I get that we don't really feel speed just acceleration but i'm thinking when you're in a car and go around a curve you feel that pull, why don't astronauts feel that if they are moving real fast and going around. Sort of how pilots feel all those G's when they're in a centrifuge.

• A man takes a box of 40 kg and jumps from 4th floor -ask him does he feel the load during his journey and he will say 'no'. A free fall does not give a feeling of any force acting on him. If somebody is enclosed in a lift he will also experience the same thing during uniform motion.Looking at the perspective of man in the satellite he is always in uniform motion and the landmarks like other heavenly bodies are moving around him, so no feeling of motion or change of velocity. – drvrm Apr 10 '16 at 7:56
• If an astronaut were zipping around in a circle the size of a typical earth orbit at 18,000 miles per hour but there were no gravity present, then they would feel exactly one "G", just like in a centrifuge. Google did the calculation for me: $((18 000 (mi / hr))^2) / (4100 mi) = 9.81307317 m / s^2$ – user55515 Apr 10 '16 at 12:23

As for the g-forces. In a space station even though the speed is very large so is the radius and thus the accelerations involved are less than 1$\times g$ and vary hardly at all across the expanse of the space station.