system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Why were Apollo astronauts weightless on the way to the moon? If they weren't orbiting shouldn't gravity have still affected them?

I get the basic physics of microgravity in orbit but no one has ever explained to me why you don't feel gravity's pull as you travel AWAY from the Earth.  Shouldn't the astronauts feel a pull like they did when they launched off the surface? Please help me get my head around this.
gpt
You will feel weightless whenever you're travelling in an inertial path - that is, free of any external forces. An orbit is one such example, but there are many other trajectories that are also inertial paths. For example, if you were to free-fall in vacuum and plummet towards Earth, you're experiencing the "pull" of Earth, yet you'll be weightless.