From: spike66 (spike66@attbi.com)
Date: Thu Sep 12 2002 - 21:29:22 MDT
Harvey Newstrom wrote:
>
> I am familiar with Cruithne. It only gets within 9 million miles of earth,
> if I recall. It is a new class of satellite in that it doesn't just loop
> around the Earth. It loops around the earth and the sun in a weird
> horseshoe orbit.
Something like this might be just the thing to have.
We would get on board as it makes its closest pass,
then start making useful things with it.
Im a little puzzled by your discription of the orbit.
If it passes within 9E6 miles of Earth, the orbit
around the sun is extremely close to elliptical, and
the effect of the earth's gravity is very small. My
back of the envelope calc shows the gravitational
effect of the sun as over 3000 times larger than the
effect of the earth at that distance. Cruithne would
scarcely notice the earth out there.
be that as it may, we still need to go get that, and
make something out of it. spike
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