Eli5: if on space Newtown law says that for every action there is an equal reaction, people moving through the ISS will eventualy make it go out of orbit?

Question

They are moving themselves by pulling on the rods, won’t that make the ISS move very little, but after a ton of movement and a ton of time, won’t it move closer or farther from the orbit and collide with earth or drift through space?

In: Physics

Answer 1

The movement inside the ISS (if you ignore stuff like spacewalks and ships docking to it to resupply it) all equals out.

If you are in the ISS and push yourself of a wall, that will make you move across the room but also accelerate the entire station into the opposite direction. Of course once you have flown across the room and arrest you movement by hitting the opposite wall you will steal just as much kinetic energy from it as your jump of originally imparted.

It is a closed system as long as nobody opens a door. Any effect from any movement you make is counteracted by whatever eventually stops you.

The only way to permanently add anything would be if you throw something out an airlock away from the station.

The station is mostly affected by friction with the uppermost remnants of earths atmosphere slowing it down and it needs to be periodically boosted up into a higher orbit to counteract that.

Any other minor effects pale in comparison to that.