I thought Doug might scoop me on this, but he hasnt, so
I dismounted my lazy ass and calculated. If one were to
climb a skyhook to a certain distance and let go, how
high would one need to be to make a minimal orbit?
I calculated, assuming a minimal orbit ignoring the atmosphere,
one needs to be about 30,000 km from the center of the
earth, or 23450 km from the surface in order to fall into a
minimal orbit.
Since there is an atmosphere, and one needs to be at least
about 300 km up before that orbit will last any time at all,
one needs to climb to 23750 km from the earth surface in
order to jump off and fall into orbit.
I wrote a spreadsheet to calc this, and will send it offlist
if anyone wants it. spike
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