Starship Asterisk*

as far as landing on an object of low gravity ? Remember EROS ? I just hope they remember the units they use to measure with

Gruyere wrote:Mmmmmmmmm ,,, gob-ular

"Globular." Fixed it. Sorry. - RJN

geckzilla wrote:Landing on something with such low surface gravity has its own challenges.

The landing part just sounds difficult. It's the orbiting part I can't understand.

Jim Leff wrote:The landing part just sounds difficult. It's the orbiting part I can't understand.

Why? Any two massive bodies will orbit each other given the proper velocity.

Chris Peterson wrote:Any two massive bodies will orbit each other given the proper velocity.

The orbiter has the mass of a pickup truck. The comet has the mass of a small asteroid - much less mass than Everest.

Or by "massive" do you mean "containing any mass at all"?

Jim Leff wrote:The orbiter has the mass of a pickup truck. The comet has the mass of a small asteroid - much less mass than Everest.

Or by "massive" do you mean "containing any mass at all"?

Yes.

By my quick calculation, the orbital speed works out to around 3 cm/s for a 200 km radius orbit.

Chris Peterson wrote:

Jim Leff wrote:The orbiter has the mass of a pickup truck. The comet has the mass of a small asteroid - much less mass than Everest.

Or by "massive" do you mean "containing any mass at all"?

Yes.

By my quick calculation, the orbital speed works out to around 3 cm/s for a 200 km radius orbit.

Just doesn't seem intuitive to me. But nobody ever said physics had to be intuitive!