A prominent politician recently proposed, as part of our SDI, to place a defensive satellite in geosynchronous orbit directly above Washington, D.C.

What if anything is wrong with his suggestion?

Normally, i would just ignore this sort of question as you usually find someone with a maths degree desperate to show you how stupid you are for not being able to integrate and cosine well enough.

This is just my theory, it is not necessarily correct, but it sounds ok.

The question states that it wants a geosynchronous orbit, now from my understanding of the definition, this means synchronised with the motion of the earth. Let’s not get confused with geostationary orbit which is where the satellite is directly above the same point on earth at all times. A geosynchronous orbit does not necessarily follow the same path as the earth’s rotation, but rather just remains on the same line of longitude. So if we go further in the question we find that the it is to be above DC, so our point of reference is that of DC and the satellite must go over Washington once a day.<o:p></o:p>

There is alot of talk about certain numbers of degrees this way and that, but it is possible to create an artificial orbit, using propellants to correct satellite movement or position. This of course now becomes more of a manual operation as you would have to use a combination of reference points to allow the satellite to be tracked and the course corrected as the satellite is now no longer going to be in a natural orbit.<o:p></o:p>

In conclusion, from what i understand though the idea is theoretically possible, it is decidedly silly as it will no doubt be reasonably unreliable and expensive. It also doesn't make much sense having an SDI satellite above a city and not over an ocean, therefore possible endangering more lives.

Posted by loki on 2004-06-11 10:32:40