Suppose that the technology exists for a spacecraft to launch with low velocity. Horizontal velocity is 0 and after brief acceleration the vertical velocity is constant at 30m/s. After 4 days the craft reaches the high-earth orbit and the propulsion is turned off. What would happen then?
In: 4
It would fall back to earth. There is insufficient horizontal velocity component to maintain an orbit so earth’s gravity would simply pull it back towards the ground. It would only be around 1000km from earth so earth’s gravity would likely dominate.
The simplest to imagine is if this happened at the north or south pole (where there would be essentially 0 horizontal velocity). But even at the equator (max horizontal component at liftoff), that component is only about 1000km/hr and that is not sufficient to maintain orbit.
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