The Martian!

In other words,

Claude's not overweight, just a foot and a half too short?


Terra

Thank you, Terra. You have Kurt on the run.



I am the perfect weight for a 60 year old man that eats as much as four normal people, and doesn't care what he looks like.

Interesting stuff.
The astronauts on the Moon were also carrying huge and heavy back packs, so the weight difference wasn't that much. And the air pressure in the suits made it very hard to maneuver in them.

For awhile, I practiced my Kung Fu with 8 pound shot puts in my hands, My theory was, my reflexes would become quicker, and my punches harder. That isn't what happened. So, I did some studying on the physics of using a weighted hand while punching., and by extension, throwing a ball in lower gravity, and less air resistance. I know, I spend my time thinking of weird things.


A pitcher wouldn't be able to aim as well, because the nervous system is already adjusting for air resistance, weight of the ball, and gravity......so the throw would be less accurate. (and that's what I found in my weighted punches)

The lower gravity would help, but the nearly nonexistent atmosphere would help a lot.

But running. We could leap higher, because of the lowered gravity, and run a little faster. But we can't run fast enough for wind resistance to be a major factor. And....neurologically, we can't move our legs much faster to run in a coordinated way.
How fast do you think an astronaut could run in zero gravity, with no air resistance? (assuming a surface to run on) Not much faster than we can run now.

And....our biggest problem to overcome isn't air resistance or gravity, it's the momentum our legs generate when moving on one direction. Running is a series of back and forth movements. No matter what the gravity, we have to overcome the force of the legs moving forward, to move them backward.

It's the single overriding reason nobody runs at 50 miles an hour. Overcoming the force generated by our limbs becomes impossible. If we ran at 100 miles an hour, our limbs would pull out of their sockets, and our tendons would tear.

And leaping? we can't leap all that much higher, even in much lowered gravity. It isn't the strength of the legs, but the speed we can contract our muscles. We simply cannot contract our muscles fast enough to generate any real height.

I'm not guessing. Sports physiologists have asked the same questions, and came up with the same answers.

Interesting stuff.