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Post by gillianren on Jul 19, 2011 19:02:58 GMT -4
Honestly, I did think one post was overreacting. And, yes, I reported it.
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Post by ka9q on Jul 19, 2011 19:17:01 GMT -4
First, with the orbital component in the return trip, how was it possible for the command module to accelerate its velocity up to 36,194 fps? What exactly is your complaint? It's well known that satellites in elliptical orbits move slowly at apogee and fast at perigee. The orbital energy remains constant, but it is continually exchanged between potential and kinetic energy. Are you claiming that the entry velocity exceeded the velocity at translunar injection? If so, let's see all of the numbers, particularly the altitudes at which each velocity is cited. I think it's quite safe to say that Apollo 11 did not violate conservation of energy. If it was moving faster during entry than after TLI at the same altitude (and I'm not saying it was, as I haven't checked the figures) there are several perfectly reasonable explanations. The first is that the trans-earth injection maneuver performed at the moon added energy to the CSM. The second is that the moon itself is in an elliptical orbit so its distance from earth changes during a mission. In this case, energy could have been transferred from the moon itself to Apollo, or vice versa.
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