Ink Pen by Phil Dunlap for January 05, 2023

So…about that throw being theoretically possible – and I’m sure I’ve forgotten some factors here:

-Fast enough to circumnavigate the planet and overcome gravity and air resistance without losing altitude in the time it takes to circumnavigate Earth.-Slow enough to not reach escape velocity, which results in the ball going on an interstellar trip. Just in case, make sure to write or draw something clever on the ball first!-Cap somehow manages to find a perfectly clear vector free of solid objects to make that throw and catch. Poor Ralston.

And most importantly:

-Cap having enough brain cells to do that math or remember it when someone does the math for him and tells him the answer so he could actually manage the throw correctly.

And if he flies straight up for ten miles, he’d be weightless. But if he burrows, say, 1000 miles straight down, will he weigh more, less, or the same?

An old SF story is about problems on the moon about this. The newbie is told he has to lay down on the floor on certain times of the day. He’s puzzled as to why. Turns out there was a brief shooting war with the Russians and the bullets are still orbiting. Silly, but made for a good story.

Attaining the requisite speed in Earth’s atmosphere would probably cause the ball to burst into flames.

A couple comments from a former physics teacher. Disregarding boring things like air friction and the existence of mountains, the projectile needs to be thrown at 5 mi/sec to MATCH the curvature of the Earth; that’s about 18,000 MPH. Less than that, the ball would touch the ground. More than that, up to 7 mi/sec, it will still go around the Earth, but in an elliptical orbit, possibly much larger than the Earth (if the speed is close to 7 mi/sec), with the low point at Cap’s position. I think Ralston would be in much worse shape. Finally, the 5 mi/sec ball would still take about an hour and a half to get around…which is also about the period for low-orbit satellites, BTW. Perhaps Cap and Hamhock had lunch and/or a beer between panels 5 and 7?