The weight of a space shuttle is approximately 20.0 million newtons. What is its weight when traveling through outer space?

When a space shuttle is traveling through outer space, far from any celestial body like Earth or the moon, it is in a state of freefall within a microgravity environment. It's important to note that weight is the force of gravity on an object, which is calculated by multiplying the mass of the object by the acceleration due to gravity (F = m * g). On Earth, the acceleration due to gravity is approximately 9.81 meters per second squared (9.81 m/s²), and this is why the shuttle has a weight of 20.0 million newtons here.

However, in outer space, since there is no significant gravitational pull acting on the shuttle, it would be essentially weightless -- its weight would be zero newtons. The mass of the shuttle does not change; it still contains the same amount of matter. But because weight is dependent on the gravitational pull, and in space far from other masses, that pull is negligible, we consider the weight of the shuttle to be zero in this context.