[ExI] De-Orbiting Gold

[spike]

>...On Behalf Of spike
>...  There are orbit sims available online.  If you find a good one, post
the URL.  Playing with those demonstrates that if you fire your rocket
straight up, you don't de-orbit, you just waste your fuel and get stuck in
orbit.

Kelly, here's one that I played with a long time ago, and looks like it has
been improved since then.  It uses Satellite Tool Kit, which is excellent,
so the realism is good.  After you goof with these sims a while, it is
clearer why things have turned out the way they have in space science:

http://orbit.medphys.ucl.ac.uk/

They claim that SpaceX Falcon Heavy will carry payloads to LEO for a
thousand bucks a pound.  If so, it will be impressive.  Good luck and
evolutionspeed SpaceX.

spike