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From: bitmap@ucbtopaz.CC.Berkeley.ARPA
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: nuclear waste products
Message-ID: <477@ucbtopaz.CC.Berkeley.ARPA>
Date: Sun, 6-May-84 15:50:48 EDT
Article-I.D.: ucbtopaz.477
Posted: Sun May  6 15:50:48 1984
Date-Received: Mon, 7-May-84 05:28:07 EDT
Organization: Univ. of Calif., Berkeley CA USA
Lines: 18

<...>

>...will someone please explain to me why the earth's orbital speed
>needs to be cancelled out.

The earth (and everything on it) has a large angular momentum
with respect to the sun.  If you could kick the earth towards the
sun, it would still stay pretty much in a circular orbit, because
of this angular momentum.  This is analogous to having a large
object, say a horse, go galloping (sp?) by towards the south, and as
he goes by, you give him a push to the west.  He might go a little
bit to the west, but will still go mostly south.  For the sun, you
don't need to cancel all of the earth's orbital speed (angular
momentum), but you'd need to cancel a lot of it.

Sam Hall
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