In media you’ll occasionally see someone stranded in freefall in space use a gun, or fire extinguisher, or thrown object, or something to try to alter their trajectory. Hell, pop a bottle of champagne and rechristen the ship!
Would this actually work though? I know you don’t have to deal with friction, but would these tiny amounts of thrust be enough to significantly effect a much more massive object?
Will firing a 125 gram 9mm round have a noticeable effect on a 80,000 gram astronaut drifting away from his ship?
It seems hard to believe,but then I’ve heard of stuff like solar sails which can apparently move an entire ship using just photons? So I don’t know.
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You don’t actually need theory *or* a trip to space to test this. Try standing on a skateboard with something heavy, like a packed suitcase and throw it in a direction aligned with the wheels. You’ll roll in the opposite direction.
If you replaced the suit case with something even bigger and heavier, that you could barely lift, you’d go back even further.
If you replaced it with something so heavy that you couldn’t lift it, but you tried anyway, you’d go flying backwards because at this point “lifting and throwing” the object is indistinguishable from pushing against it, which illustrates how Newton’s Law applies to *everything*. The reason you can lift some things (a suitcase) and not others (a car) is precisely because of this equal and opposite reaction.
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