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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ukma!sean
From: sean@ukma.UUCP (Sean Casey)
Newsgroups: net.space
Subject: Re: Getting stuck in the middle of space
Message-ID: <1793@ukma.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 22-May-85 02:51:56 EDT
Article-I.D.: ukma.1793
Posted: Wed May 22 02:51:56 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 24-May-85 02:30:54 EDT
References: <1637@mordor.UUCP> <1949@sdcrdcf.UUCP> <129@mecc.UUCP>
Reply-To: sean@ukma.UUCP (Sean Casey)
Organization: The White Tower @ The Univ. of KY
Lines: 20

In article <129@mecc.UUCP> sewilco@mecc.UUCP (Scot E. Wilcoxon) writes:
>
>Getting stuck "motionless" in vacuum is another matter.  But
>if one got stuck there by pushing another mass away, won't
>the astronaut and the mass meet again in one orbit?  I'm sure
>someone reading this knows with more certainty than I, but I
>think the two orbits will cross.

If the Astronaut threw a mass in exactly the same line of his orbit,
they would meet again eventually, but the Astronaut would be long dead
from lack of air.  Assuming the astronaut threw a 30 MPH pitch with the
mass, it would have to circumscribe a circle much larger than the
circumference of the earth, at a speed of 30 MPH. It would be more than
35 days before the object made it back around. If the course of the
object deviated from the "orbit line" in the slightest, the chances of
the two ever meeting again are, uh, astronomical.
-- 
-  Sean Casey				UUCP:	{cbosgd,anlams,hasmed}!ukma!sean
-  Department of Mathematics		ARPA:	ukma!sean@ANL-MCS.ARPA	
-  University of Kentucky