Alright /sci/ answer me this. If an astronaut gently pushes itself

>>8725279
Yes, but they will slow down with the more atmosphere particles they hit the closer to Earth they get. They won't reach Earth, they'd burn up in the atmosphere.

>>8725302
I'd think that contact with the atmosphere would cancel out the astronaut's horizontal velocity, thus bringing them out of orbit.

>>8725307
Oops, I misread that. I meant to ask if even the slightest push eventually take an object out of orbit. If I were to nudge the ISS would it eventually fall into earth's atmosphere and burn up?

>>8725279

without air to slow down the astronaut, he likely won't ever hit the earth. if the ISS was in a perfectly circular orbit and the astronaut gave himself velocity "towards" earth (probably only an extra couple meters per second) his orbit would change very slightly to a longer ellipsoid. He'd go a little bit lower in his orbit than the ISS, but after he reached the low point in his orbit he would start to come back up. it's not very intuitive, check out some youtube videos about orbital mechanics

>>8725313
>If I were to nudge the ISS would it eventually fall into earth's atmosphere and burn up?

You don't need to nudge it. Just wait a few decades and it will go there itself.

Its orbit is not stable. It needs constant corrections.

>>8725279
Mostly incorrect. Gravity is constantly pulling downwards while their forward motion is constant as well. There for the only thing an astronaut does by pushing away from the station is add to the pull of gravity, cancelling his forward momentum. Once his altitude decreases to the point of atmospheric interface, he starts to slow even more as atmospheric drag becomes a significant factor. Then as the drag tries to slow him down, the heat from the interaction with the atoms that he is smashing into and repelling at significant speeds rises to the point that the oxygen combusts and melts his suit. He dies screaming and his corpse continues to heat up until reaching its respective boiling point. Then his atoms smash around the atmosphere and spread across the planet slowly losing heat and speed. Then the astronaut, and your question is no more.

>>8725313
It is already going out of orbit to crash on Earth. There's nothing an astronaut could do to prevent or hasten that. Nothing has a "perfect" orbit. There are too many gravitational pulls, on orbiting objects from other celestial bodies, that would cause a perfect orbit to destabilize.

If it was a perfect orbit without need for correction changes then anything acting on it, like the astronaut pushing it, would cause it to eventually fly away from Earth or crash into it, if given enough time. It just depends on which way he pushes it.

>>8725317
This!
And, download and play the Free version of Kerbal Space Program. There's plenty in the free version to allow you to play with questions exactly like this one.

>>8725317
>without air to slow down the astronaut, he likely won't ever hit the earth
Good think the ISS has enough air for that.