If you are aiming for the International Space Station and accidentally overshoot it, can you make it back? Or do you just drift off into orbit until someone rescues you?
In: Physics
Since other’s have answered the basic question, I thought I’d add a fun related detail.
When Apollo missions went to the moon, they used something called a “free return trajectory”. This meant that if something happened and their rocket wouldn’t fire when they were near the moon, they would fall back to Earth automatically in a way that would allow a safe return. This actually used a little more fuel on launch, but was done for safety.
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