Why is Earth’s gravity strong enough to keep the Moon in orbit but not strong enough to prevent astronauts in space from floating?
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Because just like the moon and whatever station or ship they’re in, the astronauts are also in orbit. And they have to go REALLY fast to stay there. 25 times the speed of sound fast.
That’s why putting things in orbit is so difficult and expensive, BTW. It’s not the part where you go straight up, that’s only a few hundred kilometres. It’s the mach 25 speed to have to make it go sideways.
If you send anything straight up and not at all sideways (like in a balloon or an elevator), it will fall down exactly like you’d expect.
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