[AR] Re: [OT] Convention for describing elliptical orbits?
- From: Henry Spencer <hspencer@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: Arocket List <arocket@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 28 May 2016 16:15:15 -0400 (EDT)
On Sat, 28 May 2016, Hop David wrote:
I must say I don't like this practice... But if the usual convention is
altitude, that's what I'll use. If I use radii, I'll make a note to the
reader that I'm not following the usual notation.
Yes, that's the sensible thing to do. As John said, right or wrong it is
the standard practice, and you only invite confusion if you do something
different without warning people.
It makes some sense for LEO, where you really care about the difference
between altitudes of (say) 200km and 500km, and don't want to be
constantly doing multi-digit subtraction in your head to get those
numbers. And LEO is where much of the action has been in space. When you
go much beyond LEO, it changes from being part helpful and part nuisance
to being all nuisance, alas.
Henry
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