I’m an electrical engineer living in Los Angeles, CA.

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Cake day: June 17th, 2023

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  • No, there isn’t anything like that. Big heavy objects fall. Falling objects are moving fast when they hit the ground. Further details are irrelevant.

    Are you absolutely sure that you’ve seen a coin in those vortex demos just stop? Coins falling over doesn’t count, there’s nothing like that in space. Otherwise, they are moving at quite a clip when they reach the bottom of the funnel.

    The one possible exception is when you detach part of the mass. If your vehicle removes some mass and launches it, you can use the reaction force to slow down. This is what a rocket engine does, for example. (Note the propellant will still impact at very high speed, as evident from the plume of any rocket landing.) The higher the relative velocity of the reaction mass, the less you’ll need to come to a complete stop. But at this point we are talking about a manmade vehicle, not a naturally occurring rock.