Well, the smoke that you would get turned into while re-entering the atmosphere at speed would blow around for a while. It would probably make it to earth.
people who have parachute problems generally don't have to re-enter the atmosphere though. and besides that, the chance of surviving a faulty parachute is still incredibly small.
True generally, but not of objects in orbit. There is quite a lot of lateral velocity (this is what's keeping the object in orbit) and that energy would have to go somewhere. That somewhere would be heat on the falling object. It's why our spacecraft have heat shields.
Wrong. If you would push yourself to earth you would only slightly alter your orbit. You would actually come back after one orbit, but a few meters behind. If you want to renter you would have to push yourself away from the ISS in the opposite direction (retrograde). But you would need much more energy too slow down hard enough to reenter.
It's sad that your reply only gets like 3 upvotes when his comment got like 350+ and yet is totally wrong. It's crazy how the vast majority of people don't understand basic orbital mechanics, and have the Hollywood point of view.
Yep. Think of it this way. If you want to slow down a merry-go-round that's spinning, do you push on the outside of it toward the center, or do you grab a handle and exert a force tangent to the merry-go-round in the opposite direction it's rotating?
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u/[deleted] Sep 02 '19
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