@S1-A.ARPA,@MIT-MC.ARPA:lcc.niket@LOCUS.UCLA.EDU (07/30/85)
From: "Niket K. Patwardhan" <lcc.niket@LOCUS.UCLA.EDU> Think of it this way. A rocket sitting on the pad without enough thrust to lift off can burn all its fuel without moving at all. If there was no gravity and the stalled engine didn't lose any mass at a slower speed, what you said would be true. But of course the shuttle is working against gravity when it is taking off, and the longer it takes the less far it will go on the same fuel.