3 ms·

The ISS is not a communications satellite, escape velocity is lower than maximum closing velocity, and kinetic energy isn't momentum. Of course you can make th

• db48x 6y ago
  Forgive me for contradicting you, but I didn’t change anything; I just typed momentum when I meant energy. I first thought of the formula, not the name, and then typed the wrong name. I'm not sure how I made such a mistake, but mea culpa. Also my old friend bzbarsky mentioned closing velocity, and I stuck with it when I made my estimate. I do agree that the ISS is not usually considered to be a communications satellite (though it does have plenty of communications gear on board, including a ham radio repeater if I recall correctly). But it is a thing that we might want to deorbit one day. Since we were considering the ridiculous closing velocity of two objects that are both on escape trajectories, I figure using the ridiculous mass of the ISS was fair game too. But like I said, I originally guessed 50t, not 400t. I was thinking more about the payload capacities of launch vehicles than the satellites themselves. Whatever mass and closing velocity you consider, 7 or 10 or 11 orders of magnitude all qualify as “quite a few” even if the velocity itself only has 1.3 orders of magnitude of difference.