Re: A good altitude for Ortillery? Math and astrophysics guys helpout

>One other point about geosynch that noone has mentioned so far - you
can
>only have a geosynch orbit over the equator, rotating in the same
direction
>as the earth's rotation.  The whole point of geosynch is that the
orbit
>time of the satellite (ship/rock/lost spaceman/whatever) is the same
as the
>rotational speed of the earth, so that the satellite APPEARS to
remain over
>the same spot on the surface.	This can ONLY work for an equitorial
>orbit....  So you'll have the effect of limited-time-over-target with
any
>orbit other than equitorial ones...

This turns out not to be the case. [1000 quatloos if you recognize the
source for that sentence]

If your ship were only able to fire on a line between itself and the
center of the planet, then you'd be correct.  However, if you can fire
at some other angle, you can be anywhere within a cone and still be
able to provide support, and the broader that angle, the bigger the
cone.  Thus you could have something which is not in the equatorial
plane that could still provide support.

And of course this ignores powered orbits, Thor-type MRLS-in-space,
and the other work-arounds.