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Re: [Phys-L] Falling - the tale of a simple 1st degree non-linear ODE



Regarding:

On the topic of long falls, it seems that a bowling ball dropped at Space Station altitudes (220 km) might well linger in the vicinity.

According to the ESA at this moment the ISS' current altitude is about 416 km. According to Wikipedia the ISS' orbit decays about 2 km/month. When it gets too low it is given a boost. The space agencies apparently like to keep its altitude in the range of 330 to 435 km according to Wikipedia.

Though g may only drop a few percent the atmospheric density drops much more dramatically at 100 km to perhaps  ~ 1 millibar.

According to the Standard Atmosphere (1976) @ 100 km g = 9.505 m/s^2 (about a 3.1 % drop from the sea level official value), the atmospheric density is 5.604 x 10^-7 kg/m^3, and the air pressure is 32.01 mPa = 0.0003201 mb.

David Bowman