It _is_ special but we cannot perceive it correctly. We do not have an absolute sense of "down" (and our absolute sense of "forward" and "backward" are based on a assuming fixed "down").

We sense "down" based on assuming that 1G of acceleration is the "down" position. This is fine if you're stationary. This is fine if you're moving in 2d. But accelerate in 3d and all of a sudden you can get completely disoriented because the "down" you're latching on to could be any acceleration vector.

We _can_ manage this, but it is an acquired skill and we need instruments to help us. Pilots (and especially fighter pilots or astronauts who truly experience a lot of 3d acceleration) need to train for years to acquire this skill.

Can you imagine training an average person years just to _use_ a jetpack? That's why we have jetpacks and yet most people don't care.

Most of the astronaut and pilot training on this, btw, is to completely ignore what our internal intuition is and use instruments and direct math - for the reason you’re talking about, but also because especially at the astronaut level ALL intuition related to speed, direction, etc. is generally wrong. for pilots it’s often only mostly wrong, but using intuition and flying IFR is not going to work for long.

For an astronaut in orbit, going ‘up’ means accelerating. Going ‘down’ means slowing down. Going sideways (in the way we typically think of it) involves changing velocity in least 2 vectors twice, etc.

They have the pointy bits forward AND treat down as a problem as well. Gravity applies equally to Roombas and Cessnas and Soyuz, but only one of those is built on planar symmetry rather than radial symmetry. Don't you agree with that and isn't that interesting, that humans seems to have something about having a forward facing Cartesian plane.