#SPIN SPACIE FREE#
The object will flip back and forth in orientation as it spins, because it's trying to spin itself on the more stable large or small axes instead.
He calls it the "instability of rotation around the intermediate axis of an object," and explains that if you rotate an object around its largest and smallest axes, it will spin in a stable, consistent manner.īut if you rotate it on an intermediate axis (watch the video below to see what he means), the rotation is unstable. Found recently by Digg, the video above shows an astronaut spinning a T-handle in the SpaceDRUMS ( Space Dynamically Responding Ultrasonic Matrix System) facility aboard the ISS, and as they so delicately point out, " You thought things in space pretty much follow the rule 'go in one direction forever' right? Well it turns out you are wrong and not a physicist."įor those of us who aren't physicists, what's going on here? Our friend Henry Reich from MinutePhysics actually discusses it in the video below, when he was lucky enough to ask astronaut Scott Kelly to demonstrate it using a Leatherman tool.