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Re:Starship's Third Flight Test by thelittleone on Thursday March 14, 2024 @09:59AM (#39704107)
Isn't orbit above 125 miles (200km)?
Re:Starship's Third Flight Test by KineticLensman on Thursday March 14, 2024 @10:18AM (#39704347)
Orbit is when you turn the engines off and stay up there.
Re:Starship's Third Flight Test by apendleton on Thursday March 14, 2024 @10:06AM (#39704193)
Orbit is mostly about speed, not about height. Going straight up and down doesn't count, even if you pass the height that some orbital vehicles attain.

This vehicle is actually going orbital speed, but not quite orbital height (or rather, it's in an "orbit" that has a very eccentric elliptical shape that would cause it to hit the atmosphere on its way back around; it'd be well above a typical orbital height at apogee, though).

Re:Starship's Third Flight Test by ta1243 on Thursday March 14, 2024 @03:35PM (#39708064)
Technically you can orbit the earth at a pretty low speed. Geostationary satellites orbit about 5,500kph, which is far slower than the 26,000kph starship reached today.

You just need to get high enough, and be pointing in the right direction.

Re:Starship's Third Flight Test by usrusr on Thursday March 14, 2024 @10:18AM (#39704352)
Orbit is a speed, not a distance. You could do a suborbital hop that has its highest point beyond the orbit of the moon. (if you aim very, very well)
Re:Starship's Third Flight Test by WithinReason on Thursday March 14, 2024 @10:27AM (#39704459)
At the same time, if your velocity vector is pointing towards the ground you're not achieving orbit no matter your speed
Re:Starship's Third Flight Test by the8472 on Thursday March 14, 2024 @10:40AM (#39704638)
It works if you're a black hole or a chunk of degenerate matter. For transatmospheric orbits being a large ball of iridium will work too.
Re:Starship's Third Flight Test by madaxe_again on Thursday March 14, 2024 @10:03AM (#39704145)
Orbit is when you drop an apple off a dining room table - it’s just a very crappy orbit.

“On orbit” typically means in a stable orbit around a body - but in the case of starship, it could have been on orbit, the delta v is more than sufficient, but that’s an unsafe configuration if you don’t know your engines will relight.

Re:Starship's Third Flight Test by malfist on Thursday March 14, 2024 @10:49AM (#39704762)
It's in space (above the Kármán line), but not in orbit. Orbit implies it has the velocity for staying in space, which isn't the intention here. If anything goes wrong they want to be able to not leave junk in orbit
Re:Starship's Third Flight Test by hoorayimhelping on Thursday March 14, 2024 @10:18AM (#39704348)
Space is generally defined to be 100km above earth's surface, an arbitrary point called the Karman Line [1].

Orbit is when an object is traveling so fast that it reaches the horizon of a body before the body's gravity can pull it down to the surface, but perpetually. It's basically perpetually falling around the body. Imagine one of those guys in a wingsuit skimming along the surface of a mountain, never actually touching the surface. It's similar to that, but at a much higher scale.

1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%A1rm%C3%A1n_line