A good altitude for Ortillery? Math and astrophysics guys helpout

> In a message dated 11/30/99 4:30:08 PM Eastern Standard Time,

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...

And a geosynch orbit makes the satellite a real plum target - just
sitting
there...

> One other point about geosynch that noone has mentioned so far - you

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.

> PERRYG1@aol.com wrote: