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I understand that lots of people (including apparently the folks at NIST) want weight to be the same thing as gravitational force, but I have yet to hear one compelling reason for that.
That's not how I read the following:
"According to NIST (http://physics.nist.gov/Pubs/SP811/sec08.html) - the closest we have in the US to an "official definition":
"In science and technology, the weight of a body in a particular reference frame is defined as the force that gives the body an acceleration equal to the local acceleration of free fall in that reference frame . . ."
Doesn't this say that the weight of an astronaught is zero in the rest frame of the orbiting shuttle, since the local free-fall acceleration is zero in that frame. Therefore the force to give it that acceleration is zero, i.e. weightless??