Chapter 7
The Path To Space
The two previous chapters extended modeling of motion
in Earth's atmosphere to two dimensions. This chapter extends the modeling to three dimensions. It contains four closely related topics.
The first topic contains terms and relationships used
in describing orbital motion, in or out of atmosphere and takes into account a rotating earth.
The second topic provides a detailed description of a spreadsheet macro suitable
for modeling orbits and trajectories in and out of Earth's atmosphere.
The third topic is about determining past and future positions and their time of
occurrence for an object in orbit based on observations of the object's positions
in a part of its orbit.
In the fourth topic, the orbit that is found in the third topic is tested for conformity
with the first two of the conclusions of Kepler.
The topics of this chapter can be accessed by clicking their names.