Re: Troop Capacity

At 05:55 PM 6/22/98 -0400, you wrote:
>Just a quick note, since I should be configuring an Apache Web
>server... (8-)

Wot, doing *work*??? ^_-

>Thomas Barclay wrote:
>> 
>> Richard spake thusly upon matters weighty:
>> > Orbital mechanics are.. Low orbit is anything above the atmosphere,
>> 
>> What are orbits just inside the atmosphere (outer layers)? Other than
>> short term...are they not also Low Orbits?
>
>Yeah, though since the Atmosphere/Space interface is fuzzy, maybe
>you should just define low orbit as an orbit where an object in
>that orbit will stay up for 'a little while', i.e. where the
>atmosphere has a small to minimal effect.  

The atmosphere/space interface is *very* fuzzy, especially since, as I
recall, it changes periodically based on temperature, etc. -- the warmer
the air/plant below, the further out the atmosphere will "bulge".
Something like that.

>From my Model UN daze in HS, though, I think "legally" (as defined by
the
big nations with launcher capability) the atmosphere extends 100 km up
from
sea level -- anything over that is "international space" and freely
available for use.  The equatorial nations, of course, very much want to
dispute this....

>(Isn't the formal def'n of LEO for Earth anything below the 
>Van Allen belts?  Anybody who does anything with space stuff
>care to comment?  Indy? )

Well, from my handy-dandy Smithsonian Guide "Spaceflight", LEO is "The
orbit around Earth that a spacecraft makes when it is between one
hundred
and a few hundred miles above the surface."  Not especially scientific,
but
there it is....

					Aaron Teske
					ateske@NERC.com