Question

You’re flying your 10,000-kg Scooty Puff Pro spaceship at a constant speed of 20 km/s in the positive xdirection. All of the sudden it malfunctions and many of the thrusters are stuck on. The main thruster is stuck on producing a 800 kN force in the positive x-direction. Two of the small maneuvering thrusters are also stuck on, one producing a 100 kN force in a direction 30° from the positive y-direction towards the negative x-direction, and the other is producing a 150 kN force in a direction 10° from the negative ydirection towards the negative x-direction. After 2 minutes of this the two maneuvering thrusters shut off and the main thruster decreases in magnitude to 200 kN, while still applying the force in the positive xdirection. It takes an additional 6 minutes to fix the problem and turn all of them off.

(a) How far and in what direction would you have to travel to get to where you would have been if the malfunction had not occurred? (b) Use the Sign sense-making technique, along with your physical representation, to check whether the direction of your answer in part (a) is reasonable.

Answer 1