Well, I'm pretty sure the title sums it up. But, I was watching the History Channel, and they mentioned that the fresh water stock in NYC, so they let fires rage on, destroying whole city blocks, and my friend and I wanted to know, why not just take salt water? So there's my question from two high-schoolers hoping there's an answer.
Laugh Out Loud at Kev, Irk, and that John dude! Naa I've never felt that way James.
Space is *like* a bowling ball on a rubber sheet; beware of taking analogies too far. The planets don't slow down because there is nothing in their way - they are moving through the near-perfect vacuum of empty space. Also they are not being sucked towards the sun, rather they are literally *falling around* the sun - their forward motion gives them just enough velocity to miss the sun because the sun's surface curves away as they fall towards it. Imagine firing a cannonball horizontally from a mountaintop: the greater the velocity the farther the ball goes before hitting the ground. At a high enough velocity the ball will go so far that it hits later than expected because the earth's surface has begun to curve away from it, and at just the right velocity the earth curves away at the same rate the ball is falling and at that point it has achieved orbit. Not one that will last very long since it's moving through the atmosphere, but the point should be clear. If the speed is greater than that for a stable orbit, the ball will get to escape velocity and leave the earth permanently, unless the sun and other planets yank it around and send it back to us at a really deadly speed. Be careful with those things.
