escape velocity would send the vehicle away from the earth
and at the same time once the vehicle stopped accelerating
away from the earth the vehicle would then begin to gradually
decelerate due to the gravitational attraction between the
vehicle and the earth until the vehicle comes to a stop
and at that time the vehicle would begin to accelerate towards
the earth or towards the largest gravitation field that it
is attracted to.
Escape velocity is defined as the velocity that a mass must have to escape completely from a planet's gravitational field. It is the speed that the mass must have with no further acceleration, other than the gravitational attraction between the planet and mass. It is, as I said above, like being shot out of a cannon. There is one impulse, then it just coasts. Your system would reach escape velocity at some point above the Earths surface. Just how far would depend on the actual acceleration of the vehicle. Once it had reached that velocity then it would keep on gaining velocity as long as the vehicle's propulsion system continued to operate.
all true except the approximately correct part because I did
include in the specs that the vehicle supplies its own propulsion
and the vehicle has a mass of 1 kilogram.
but I should have also noted that the vehicle does not throw mass
away from the vehicle in order to achieve propulsion.
The reason I said approximately is that I didn't stop to do a calculation, so I can't be sure that you are completely correct. You are correct that you said the vehicle was under constant acceleration and I understood that it did not expend any mass in maintaining that acceleration. What changes then is the net acceleration, that is the sum of the acceleration down provided by the Earth's gravitational field and the acceleration upward provided by the vehicles propulsion system. I added the rest about modern rockets because I just wanted to be complete.
Bill Gill
