[Born to Conserve]

“17,000 is a little slow for it to be in orbit.”

Depends on how high it is . . .

[JRandomFreeper]

Anything lower than 90 minutes requires a lot of input power because of the atmosphere and that's... well. I'll let you calc the orbit. A cook can do it.

/johnny

[coldbluesteel]

This is true!

[dr_lew]

Yeah. v²/r = g(R/r)², so v = sqrt( g R ) sqrt( R/r ).

sqrt( g R ) represents the speed of an orbit at distance R, or about 7901 m/sec = 17674 mph and the speed of higher orbits are lower by the second factor.

Then we require r/R =( 17674/17000 )² ~= 1.08, giving an altitude of 0.08 R or about 317 miles .