About This Lesson
This NASA video segment explains why the space shuttle stays in orbit. An astronaut on board the space shuttle uses a computer to simulate one of Isaac Newton's theoretical motion experiments. Viewers watch as an animated person throws a baseball from the top of an imaginary mountain peak above the atmosphere. As the person throws the ball faster, it travels farther until it eventually circles Earth and comes back to the person. Viewers learn that the space shuttle moves so fast, like the baseball, that it continually circles Earth, crossing the United States in only 10 minutes.
