why when the international space station is only 250miles away does it take at least 4 hours to get there?

1.46K viewsOtherPlanetary Science

I’m going to be very disappointed if the rockets top out at 65mph.

In: Planetary Science

39 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Think of it like you’re standing in the middle of a big race track. A car racing around that track might only be 1/2 mile away at any point but it’s still going to take more than the 3 to 4 minutes it takes you to run to the track surface. The car is always going around the track (like the ISS orbiting the earth) and you’ll have to find some way to keep up with it.

In real life this means launching at a specific time, going into a slightly lower orbit that is slightly behind the ISS (which counterintuitively takes less time per orbit meaning you’ll slowly catch up), then carefully syncing your orbit to the ISS while you get closer and closer. To go back to the race car analogy, that would be like leaving the pit lane just as the car crosses the start/finish line, getting up to speed just behind it, and slowly pulling up next to it after a few laps.

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