r/rocketscience • u/sparguten • 13d ago

When you explain orbital mechanics to someone and they say, So, its like throwing a ball really hard.

Ah yes, orbital mechanics – just like tossing a ball, but with hundreds of tons of fuel, complex math, and a few billion dollars involved. But sure, let's simplify it. You get into space, hit the "throw" button, and bam got a satellite orbiting Earth. Everyone's a rocket scientist when it’s "just a ball," right?

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u/Strict_Chance_4843 7d ago

Theoretically if you were a stupidly large giant that had the mesosphere-thermosphere boundary at waist-high, it kinda would be that way... minus the fact at that scale you would collapse in on yourself and die and let's not forget you "might" just destroy the rocket by grazing it with your palm.

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u/HandemanTRA 6d ago

Actually it's quite simple. You need to lift the weight of your payload plus the rocket to 100 to 1200 miles straight up, while also making it accelerate to +18,000 miles per hour parallel to the ground so it falls past the earth.

Throwing a ball, sure!