At NASA’s Zero Gravity Research Facility in Cleveland, Ohio, experimental payloads fall freely from rest in an evacuated vertical shaft through a distance of 132 m.
(a) If a particular payload has a mass of 45 kg, what is its potential energy relative to the bottom of the shaft?
(b) How fast will the payload be traveling when it reaches the bottom of the shaft? Convert your answer to mph for a comparison to highway speeds.