26 Jul '06 18:36>
Originally posted by FabianFnasNo, the space elevator is in a 24 hour orbit but it has to be done by centrifugal and centripital forces not a real orbit. The elevator people are proposing a rope 62,000 miles high, about 100,000 Km I think.
Then you have to look harder. We've been discussed the geosync orbits for a while. That's the answer.
Do I have to write it out? Isn't it enough to hint the anser? So you know that I know?
I don't like to spoil the fun for the others...
So Presumably at an altitude of 22,241 miles you will be in that orbit if you stepped off. However you have to add a couple more Km/sec.
velocity if you want to escape the earths gravity. However, since the rope is many thousands of Km longer than that, at some place going outward on the rope, you will find you can step off the rope and not come back down to earth unless you either have a rocket to do that or can come back down the rope. You will be at an altitude where the orbit of the rope produces a velocity greater than escape velocity. The question is, how high up the rope do you have to go to find that you are at escape velocity just by being on that rope. Like I said, its a lot less than 100,000 Km but more than 36,000 Km which is about the distance of a geosync orbit if you were actually orbiting which in this case you are most decidedly not.