The thing you have to consider is g close to the horizon. For g to be less than 3 g(Earth) within a 100 meters of the event horizon the mass is astronomical (I could show you the calculation if you were interested). The minimum unstable orbit is r=3M (the mass M is in geometrical units where one solar mass equals 1477 meters) so for your black hole the distance from the event horizon r=2M to r=3M is huge. The reason r=3M is the minimum unstable orbit is the orbital speed goes to c and the angular momentum goes to infinity at r=3M. Never fear because you can just free fall your ship radially towards the event horizon and fire rockets to come to rest with respect to the horizon at r=2M + 100 meters. Your suspicions are realized when you lower your wire pass the event horizon. You must release immediately or you will be pulled inside the hole because there is not enough energy in our universe to stop the wire from reaching crunch at the singularity. No signal could be sent from the end of the wire to the ship once the wire end had crossed the horizon

• Inseperably fused - syzygy - August 20, 2001 - 18:58 UTC
  • Thats not how it is defined.. - bruce - August 25, 2001 - 19:54 UTC