Earth View Motel

Someone is going to be the first to open a space hotel in low earth orbit and it might as well be you. After years of hard work and lining up investors, you launch the Earth View Motel. Great view! Unfortunately, business is a little slow and you need more guests at your rate of $3,000 a night. Your marketing director suggests giving away frequent flyer miles to boost business – many other hotels do this as an incentive to travelers. The cost to you would be one penny per mile. You are in perfect circular orbit 135 miles above earth’s equator and you complete one orbit every 100 minutes. Earth’s diameter at the equator is 7,926 miles. How many miles does the Earth View Motel travel every 24 hours? At a penny a mile, how much would it cost you per day to give each guest a frequent flyer mile bonus? Does it make business sense if you are charging a daily rate of $3,000 a day, view included?


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