could use some technical checks

On Jul 4, 2014, at 4:11 PM, Joe Strout joe@... [spacesettlers] wrote:

>> The limiting factor on the altitude of the settlement then is time to
>> impact with Earth if all control is lost (all sats below GEO will
>> eventually impact Earth).
>
> Really?

Its what my orbital dynamics friends tell me. I havent done the math myself.

> I would think that a lot of orbits below GEO would have such a
> long decay time as to be essentially "never.

It can be a very long time (millions of years or even more if youre just below GEO), but eventually.