Man alive everybodies is asleep, dang it when you guy's wake this world is gonna rock.

Originally Posted by
Demen Tolden
I think of it as a centripetal force idea. An object that is "orbiting" another object has a force applied to it that is always directed toward the center of its circular path and always perpendicular to its velocity at any particular time.
I'm not to sure exactly what your saying, but if I were to guess the logic behind what you're trying to say, then, that would be like saying when the plane cruses at 30,000 ft on a flat surface below and encounters mountains of say 3000 ft the plane would automatically elevate to regulate that centripetal force, that doesn't happen if you ever traveled coast to coast.

Originally Posted by
Demen Tolden
This is also the same exact idea that satalites use to effortlessly stay in orbit. The only force needed is gravity in the case of the satalites.
There is no orbit in space, why do you think they call it "the space walk" you can actually walk on the atmosphere. This is the line that hooked a generation to sink lower then previous one.
"The ISS free-falls as it orbits the Earth. If there were no forces acting on the ISS, it would travel in a straight line away from the Earth. Because the Earth pulls the ISS towards it and is traveling 7900 meters per second (26,000 feet per second) parallel to the Earth's surface, the ISS moves around the Earth in a circle. Astronauts in the ISS appear to be floating, but it is more correct to say they are in "free fall."
http://ksnn.larc.nasa.gov/webtext.cfm?unit=float
The Question:
When you drive your car on your city roads (on the planes) the atmosphere is level to this surface you're driving on, only parallel 300 km up. You know that your car is moving forward because you've got your foot on the gas pedal, but if you take your foot off it your car begins to slow down and finally comes to a stop, so, "how does the ISS or Shuttle who are on the same flat surface plane in regards to the atmosphere be traveling this so-called orbit?"
The gases that layer up one on top of the other (atmosphere) are held by a force, that force is called gravity, if we on Earth had no gravity our cars would take longer to slow-down because there would be no friction, the air would be the only assistance to that slow-down. So, since the Shuttle sits on these gases held down by that force called gravity it too will slow-down, granted, it will take longer for there is no air to assist in that deceleration. But the question still remains, "how does the Shuttle achieve orbit without propulsion?"
And because the atmosphere is level and parallel to your everyday rural areas of your neighbor-hood. The Shuttle would be sitting on an exact horizontal plane such as the spaces of your own surroundings, there would be no way for the Shuttle to go forward without propulsion. Think of it in this way, if you lay a ball on the ground will this ball start falling around the round Earth? Not my ball, so, if the same ball is taken directly over-head of that same spot and laid on the atmosphere will that ball start falling around the round Earth and achieve what we've come to believe is orbit?
Maybe this link will help with a visual, picture the Space-Shuttle sitting at 250 km, now look to ground zero, see how flat the ground is? That's how flat the atmosphere is up there following the flat ground below.
http://ds9.ssl.berkeley.edu/LWS_GEMS...3/emrad510.jpg