Has it occurred to anyone that the station and golf ball would then be in intersecting orbits. He may miss the station on the first shot, but it will cross the station's path again every 45 minutes( or thereabouts, assuming a 90 minute orbit at that altitude) for another try. And what about all the other satellites in or near that orbital band???
Has it occurred to anyone that the station and golf ball would then be in intersecting orbits. He may miss the station on the first shot, but it will cross the station's path again every 45 minutes( or thereabouts, assuming a 90 minute orbit at that altitude) for another try. And what about all the other satellites in or near that orbital band??? Not quite. Both the station and the golf ball are in similar orbits. The golf ball is moving away at, say, 100 mph. Ignoring that the slightly higher velocity would cause it to move to a higher orbit, it would take roughly 266 hours (11 days) to cover the roughly 26,600 mile circumference of the orbit. Of course, that is ignoring the fact that faster objects orbit at different altitudes, and ignoring that the station keeping thrusters occasionally boost the station's altitude.
Good thought, though -- do we really want a golf ball flying around near the station's orbit as a potential hazard for incoming vehicles?