Now the teacher shows a styrofoam cup with 2 holes bored in the sides near the bottom. The cup is filled with water. With the holes plugged by the fingers, the cup is dropped. The class observes that as long as the cup falls, no water spills out. Now the teacher holds teddy and the ball on the same level and lets them fall simultaneously.
Students observe that they fall together and hit the ground at the same time.
Then gravity is not the reason for weightlessness, but the falling away at the same rate of the elevator. If their motion were suddenly stopped, their full weight would seem to return because their supports were pressing upwards into them. In the freely- falling elevator, a scale placed under the person's feet falls away as fast as the person himself, the scale would read zero and the person feels weightless. Persons in orbital motion are in free-fall. That's why they experience weightlessness.