centripetal force

Tic, the unfortunate hamster in this video, loses his footing while getting some exercise and gets pulled into the spin cycle, completing nearly 12 revolutions in about four seconds before ignominiously dropping out of the wheel. However, while Tic may be bewildered by what happened during his morning training session, we need not be.

Why does he get pulled into the spin? How does he remain in orbit for 12 rotations before falling off of the wheel? How does he finally escape? These are the questions we will address for Tics sake.

I often see, in representations of space stations and space vehicles,
a chamber that revolves or spins, producing artificial gravity. How is that possible? If the object is floating and the room starts spinning, it will simply spin around the object. Centrifugal force depends on gravity to work, doesn't it?

Paul Holtzheimer
Custer, Wash.