A short rant about the Kate Upton "vomit comet" photo shoot...

[jberryhill]

51. "You are confusing the force that you exert on the scale with weight"

No, you never took physics. That is the operational definition of "weight".

No, you have the same mass in free fall, in that it takes the same amount of force to induce movement. But you have no "weight" in free fall. That is why the bathroom scale in your falling elevator will read "0".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weightlessness

Weightlessness, or an absence of 'weight', is in fact an absence of stress and strain resulting from externally applied forces, typically contact forces from floors, seats, beds, scales, and the like. Counterintuitively, a uniform gravitational field does not by itself cause stress or strain, and a body in free fall in such an environment experiences no g-force acceleration and feels weightless. This is also termed zero-g.

[...]

The myth that satellites remain in orbit because they have "escaped Earth's gravity" is perpetuated further (and falsely) by almost universal misuse of the word "zero gravity" to describe the free-falling conditions aboard orbiting space vehicles. Of course, this isn't true; gravity still exists in space. It keeps satellites from flying straight off into interstellar emptiness. What's missing is "weight", the resistance of gravitational attraction by an anchored structure or a counterforce. Satellites stay in space because of their tremendous horizontal speed, which allows them — while being unavoidably pulled toward Earth by gravity — to fall "over the horizon." The ground's curved withdrawal along the Earth's round surface offsets the satellites' fall toward the ground. Speed, not position or lack of gravity, keeps satellites in orbit around the earth.

At the altitude of the space station, the earth's gravitational force is considerable - it holds the moon, which is 250,000 miles away, in orbit as well. If it weren't for the fact that it had a high horizontal velocity, the ISS would drop like a rock.