difference between weightlessness and freefall
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Meaning and Cause of Weightlessness. Weightlessness is simply a sensation experienced by an individual when there are no external objects touching one's body and exerting a push or pull upon it. ... When in free fall, the only force acting upon your body is the force of gravity - a non-contact force.
Weightlessness is the complete or near-complete absence of the sensation of weight. This is also termed zero-g, although the more correct term is "zero g-force". It occurs in the absence of any contact forces upon objects including the human body.
In Newtonian physics, free fall is any motion of a body where gravity is the only force acting upon it. In the context of general relativity, where gravitation is reduced to a space-time curvature, a body in free fall has no force acting on it.
An object in the technical sense of the term "free fall" may not necessarily be falling down in the usual sense of the term. An object moving upwards would not normally be considered to be falling, but if it is subject to the force of gravity only, it is said to be in free fall. The moon is thus in free fall.