Where (what) is an orbit? Where is Space?

[mpresic3]

As background, I grew up in a working class neighborhood where few parents went to school. In 1962, John Glenn came back from space. I was told this. I am not sure what the adults believed back them. "Space" was new. It would be 4 years before star trek, and even then,Space was labeled the final fronteir. It was labeled that before the show though.

Anyway I suspect that the majority of adults back then could not answer the question, Where is Space? Where is Orbit? I remember an episode of Bewitched, where Endora (Agnes Morehead), threatens to blast Darren (Dick York or maybe Sargent) into Lunar Orbit. If I asked an adult, I suspect I would not get the answer that he would be traveling in circles or ellipses. They would probably just say, she is going to send him too far away?
This brings me to the question, (more than 50 years have passed), Can most adults tell anyone, where is space? where is orbit.

With the advance of technology, maybe all schoolchildren have answers to these questions. Some allied questions are, When do school kids find out about this stuff. I think most 14-15 year olds if not older even in my neighborhood would have been confused. Jay Leno sometimes goes to universities and walks around asking kids, what 3 countries of the world begin with U. Wouldn't it be as least as interesting to know if undergrads at university could explain, where is space? where is orbit. (Maybe even what is orbit?)

Maybe a schoolteacher out there can find out what kids/adults believe in this regard. I would be very interested.

 

[Drakkith]

This brings me to the question, (more than 50 years have passed), Can most adults tell anyone, where is space? where is orbit.

No, not in any technical sense. Most people don't know these kinds of details about anything involving science, space, or technology.

As for where is space, space is generally accepted to be anywhere beyond the height at which an aircraft would need to travel so fast to generate lift that its speed is the same as orbital speed. This height is known as the Kármán line.

Orbit is more complicated. It's less 'where' and more 'where, how fast, and what direction'. Alan Shepard and John Glenn both went to space, but Glenn also went into orbit. An orbit is a curved trajectory around a body that doesn't intersect with the surface of that body, where the trajectory is the path an object would move along if solely under the influence of gravity.

 

[mpresic3]

I was not looking for a technical definition, as I am sure most adults and kids are not acquainted with the Karman line. I just wanted to find out if they have vague conceptions of these ideas.
It could be because Shepard and Grissom went up but did not orbit, they may have thought Glenn did the same but he took longer to come down because he went out further. I am not criticising the adults I grew up with. Most had earthly concerns to deal with. Information sources were scarce by today's standards. Most of them still got their broadcast news by radio.

I am interested in whether schools present more depth, and whether kids are better informed, and possibly at what age. Does a 9 year old know astronauts travel in circles (actually ellipses)? Actually Star Trek, probably did a service in showing the starship circling the planet. I wonder if many tv viewers picked up on orbits starting in September 1966.

 

[DaveC426913]

Probably the best, simplest thing they could teach kids is this:

Space is not 100 miles away; space is 25,000 miles per hour away.