Summary

Chapter 15, “Space and Satellites,” is the first chapter in Section IV, “Space,” and is divided into four sections. In the introduction, Muller describes a scenario in which a person in a falling elevator would feel the same weightlessness that astronauts feel in space. The same weightlessness can also be felt falling, jumping, or riding a roller coaster. In those moments, you do not feel the effects of gravity. For a brief period of time, it is almost like you are in orbit around the Earth as much as you are on it. Satellites are objects that are launched to high enough altitudes that if they can stay at the right speed they are not pulled back down by Earth’s Gravity. Rockets and satellites that do want to come back down to Earth just need to slow down again.

“Satellite Orbits...