| A ball that is thrown up in the air falls down due to | | | | incrementally. It is not known however if the |
| gravity. But can you throw a ball up in space so that | | | | gravitational force becomes zero continuosly or just |
| it escapes the gravitational pull of the earth's surface. | | | | becomes zero abruptly when the object encounters |
| Yes, precisely, that is how rocket launches work as | | | | space. Rockets are known to suddenly burn when |
| well. | | | | they enter the earths gravity from space due to the |
| When a ball is thrown up manually it reaches a height | | | | huge force that is exerted by the earth. |
| of 1 metre in say 10 seconds. So the velocity is | | | | Contrary to popular understanding space does not |
| roughly 0.1 m/s. The kinetic energy produced due to | | | | have a vertical or horizontal direction. The force is |
| the motion of the ball is not sufficient to make the | | | | continuous. The escape velocity is different for each |
| ball escape the gravitational force exerted by the | | | | planet. A zero gravity scenario is mimicked by making |
| Earths surface on the ball. | | | | a lift fall from the top of the empire state building. |
| But if the ball has sufficient energy to overcome the | | | | Due to Newtons third law of motion any object will |
| gravitational pull of the Earth on the ball, then it would | | | | experience 0 gravity during a free fall. |
| escape gravity and start orbiting the Earth. The | | | | Commercial launches have different issues to consider |
| velocity required to make an object escape the | | | | such as flight safety, crew safety, fuel for rockets |
| earths gravitational force is independent of the mass | | | | etc., The applications that orbiting satellites have |
| of the object and is about 11.3 Km/Sec. | | | | provided are enormous. The current GPS technology |
| Rockets are launched using a similar principle. Either | | | | used in many Earth stations is primarily based on |
| the energy can be supplied initially or can be supplied | | | | communication provided by revolving satellites. |