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A limit to the airspace belonging to each country has to be defined. Otherwise (for example) the Apollo missions would have violated USSR's airspace whenever t
by Seb-C 4y ago
A limit to the airspace belonging to each country has to be defined.
Otherwise (for example) the Apollo missions would have violated USSR's airspace whenever the moon's orbit was above it's territory, which would make space unusable for everyone.
- imtringued 4y agoIt would be a ridiculous definition of airspace if it included the vacuum of space. So yes, Ballons are by definition in airspace because they use lighter than air buoyancy to rise and sattelites do not.
- georgeg23 4y agoThere's actually a non trivial amount of air in low earth orbit. For example the ISS or Starlink satellites would experienced drag and reenter in only a few years without periodic thrusting. At Starlink launch dispense they are even lower and reenter in days.
- usrusr 4y agoTrue, but I'd consider a height at which an object with sufficient speed will happily do a few orbits before eventually succumbing to drag to be safely in the "not air" realm.
- usrusr 4y agoWell, technically if I'm not completely wrong the moon's ground track missed the southernmost extension of the USSR by a few degrees of latitude, but that nitpicking certainly does not put your point into question.