VLVL2 (9.5): Cheapsat

[Dave Monroe]

   "'One more thing!'  The Professor's voice was
beginning to fade.  In the interests of cost
containment, Takeshi subscribed to the services of
Cheapsat, an economy communications satellite that was
not, like more expensive units, geosynchronous, or
parked in orbit always above the same spot on the
Earth--no, Cheapsat instead drifted continually
backward through the heavens, always going over the
horizon in the middle of people's phone calls, as it
even now was doing." (VL, Ch. 9, p. 170)


"geosynchronous"

Geosynchronous (adj.): geo-, earth and synchronous,
going on at the same rate and exactly together.
 
http://liftoff.msfc.nasa.gov/academy/rocket_sci/satellites/geo-high.html

http://liftoff.msfc.nasa.gov/academy/rocket_sci/satellites/geosync.html

http://www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/5-8/features/geo_feature_5_8.html

http://en2.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geosynchronous_satellite


"backward through the heavens"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retrograde

http://scienceworld.wolfram.com/physics/RetrogradeOrbit.html

http://www.sciencedaily.com/encyclopedia/Retrograde_orbit

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