> Of Bill Hooper >In a recent NASA publication I learned that the 400 mile high >orbit of GP-B which you reported (and which I had suggested >could be identified as a 650 km orbit) is really a >400 NAUTICAL mile orbit (which is closer to a 750 km orbit).
Yes. NASA seems to be the only organisation in the world that uses nautical miles for vertical distance. But I am not confident enough to say that *all* vertical distances are in nautical miles. So the word 'mile' on its own is not sufficient in space references to work out whether it means statute mile or nautical mile. I am also uncertain about space references to 'miles' in horizontal distances but this ambiguity also applies to all of aerospace and nautical references.
