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I recently got a presentation on the International Space Station (ISS) which features one of its cranes. It is said that it's able to "lift" a weight of up to 116 tons.
I couldn't help thinking how did they come up to this number, after all there is no weight in space and every force you apply on an object - that object will apply the same force on you.
How is it possible for them to calculate that it works for 116 tons and how do they avoid the force being worked back at the crane so that the space station won't get out of its orbit due to it?
I was late for work this morning, because I got stuck in Zeno's paradox.
I think that the lifting power of the crane is calculated for earth conditions and is given as a number that "regular people" (ie not physicists or astronauts) can understand more easily.
As for the crane knocking the space station out of orbit, I'm pretty sure that the space station has some kind of stabilizing mechanism that will keep it in a fixed orbit.
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