My question is: You and your 100 kg partner are stranded in space 100m from your spaceship, you are running out of air and you have no equipment at all to help you get back. You are fine but your partner is badly injured and unable to move at all. Your partner is directly between you and the ship.

Using the concepts of conservation of linear and angular momentum, explain how you could get back to your spaceship in a reasonable degree of control facing towards it so that you can fly the spacecraft to retrieve your partner.

Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks in advance!

Don't I need a radius measure between me and my partner? If it's a nice number like 1m, then the equation should be 100 kg x 100m/s x 1 m x sin180? Sorry, I never paid much attention in high school physics class. EDIT: Actually, I have no clue how to do this.

I don't see any BIOmechanics here. Just physics. I don't know the answer but I think it should be something with rotation. You can probably try to grib your partner and begin to turn yourself around him.

Or just kick him away, but try to do it so that you go towards the space ship. At least one of you will save his ass!

Can someone solve this using the right equations? I'd really like to know! And for curiousity's sake, how far away would the other scientist be and at what angle after you've gotten back to the ship - I guess this could be figured out by some trigonometry but I have no idea how.

Grab hold of your partner and push on him sideways in order to turn yourself around, so you're facing the ship. Don't let go of him, of course! Then, rotate yourself in a similar fashion so that your head is facing the ship and your feet are touching your partner. Apologize, and then kick him away - if your aim is true enough, you'll reach the ship head-first (I hope you can grab onto it).

I believe this would work, but I dunno... I'd be willing to test it if there was some safety net (like a ship waiting and no actual danger)