Geeking Out: Nit Picking an Old Skit
A few months back, the drama team did a skit in which Lisa and Annette were passengers on a sub-orbital tourist flight designed to break the world record for number of people in space at one time. The problem is, no-one on the team had any idea what that actually meant. How high is "space," anyway? Dozens of miles? Hundreds of miles? How do you know when you get there?
Fear not, I have found the answer. The "edge of space" is defined by the Karman Line which is set at 100 km (~62 miles.)
This turns out to be a highly subjective definition, of course, but it's been agreed upon internationally.
BTW: A Sub-orbital space flight is one in which the perigee distance is less than the radius of the Earth, hence the ellipse intersects the Earth. The major axis is vertical, the semi-major axis is more than one half of the radius of the Earth, and almost always less than the radius.
Link: Atmosphere Diagram
|