Side note: Watching Mikey put on a Batman mask and interrogate his stuffed animals is adorable in a quirky kind of way.

Basically the shuttle’s (or any object in stable orbit’s) velocity is all on a vector that would be tangential to earth’s orbit were it not for gravity pulling on it. That angular momentum has to be just strong enough that gravity bends the tangent line into a circle rather than a death spiral, but not so strong that gravity can’t hold it and it goes off into open space.

I don’t mind television to be honest, I just mind that a painfully small minority of parents seem to be paying enough attention to their kids to have them realize that entertainment is just that and not a pattern for society. I don’t think dichotomy between reality and entertainment is too much to ask for with the parenting of our kids. *sigh*

“But sir, we’ve already lost five ensigns to the radiation. I be inna lead suit!”

Just when you think you have it mastered, they change the design! Single hooks, double hooks, clips, clasps, snaps…when will it end?!

*Gives thanks for the “clasp-in-front” design*

Darn text-to-emotion conversion fails again!

Besides many women are incredibly talented in ways a man could never be…

insert obligitory [in bed] comment! (lols!)

I intended to show empathy…

As mentioned, I think if the designers at NASA had thought to put a strap on the stupid bag that attaches to something…anything…this could have been avoided.

Man or woman makes no difference. I suppose you immediately associated Avon with women, and you think that was part of my ’sexist jab’? I hadn’t thought of that. It was just the only brand of soap I could think of off the top of my head that came on a rope.

The movement that results from gravity is directly toward the earth only, but as long as you have the right speed (see my comment above to Steve for the actual formula), that change in position is exactly matched by the amount that the earth’s surface curves away from you.

To orbit at any particular altitude requires a specific speed.

Net Force = Gravitational Force
mv^2/r = GMm/r^2
v=sqrt(GM/r)

where G is the gravitational constant, M is the mass of the earth, and r is the distance from the centre of the earth. The mass of the object (m), interestingly enough, doesn’t enter into it.

Any object will orbit in a circle at distance r so long as it has speed v. It’s the very tiny drag of earth’s atmosphere still present at the space station’s/shuttle’s altitude that eventually slows objects down, which affects the size/shape of their orbit. Without that drag, inertia would maintain the ‘forward’ direction indefinitely. Which is why the shuttle occasionally uses its engines to boost the station to a slightly higher orbit.

The Moon is moving away from the Earth because the of the tides it cause in the Earth. The tides cause friction within the Earth, which cause the Earth and Moon to move a little farther apart (conservation of energy working there). This same friction is why the Moon only shows one side to the Earth. It’s “tide-locked”.

The bag will fall to Earth, but only because it’s orbiting inside the outer reaches of the Earth’s atmosphere, so friction with air will slow it down enough to reenter. Someone already mentioned that the ISS needs regular “boosts” to keep it in place. There are a lot of satellites that orbit in “geo-staionary” orbits at about 22,000 miles, compared to the ISS and Shuttle at 190 miles. They’ll be there for along time, until the little tugs made by other planets when they pass close pulls it into a different orbit…

I could go on, like I said, orbits are very complex when there’s more than two bodies involved.