Orbital Mechanics in 60 Seconds – I

So, contrary to what you see in movies
spacecraft can’t just sit around inspace near a planet because they’d fall
right into it. To stay in space we needto get into orbit. So first we take off
from Earth’s surface, fly up past theatmosphere, and keep accelerating more
and more so that we start looping aroundEarth before we could fall back into it.
Now we’re in orbit. This is where we’rein zero-g because even though we’re
still pulled downwards we’re just sortof free falling back onto our own
trajectory. Now for example to get to themoon we need to point forward and fire
our engines to expand our orbit until itintersects with the moon’s path. Now even
though the moon’s gravity is starting topull us in, we still need to flip around
and burn our engines in reverse to slowdown and get into orbit. At this point we
can pick a spot to land, burn our enginesagainst our trajectory, and come down to
the surface. So that’s it for now guysjust something you can share with a
friend who wants to learn more aboutspace travel without all the fancy math
or a terminology. Thanks for watching andcheck the comments section for more
details and stay tuned for more videos!