Word: orbiteer
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...Alfven's theory reaches back to a time when the moon was not yet a satellite of earth, when it soared around the sun like any other planet on its own independent orbit. Trouble was, its orbit took the moon near its large neighbor, the earth. In Icarus, International Journal of the Solar System, Alfven suggests that eventually the moon ventured too close and was captured by the earth's gravity...
Strange Discrepancy. That far, the theory is disarmingly simple. But astronomers can calculate the new orbit of such a recent captive, and the moon does not move along the expected path. Instead of curving along an eccentric ellipse far out into space and then close to earth again, the moon moves along a mildly deformed circle. Such a course would be explainable for a satellite that was moving in the opposite direction from the earth's rotation at the time it was captured. But the moon now revolves in the same direction, and to prove his theory correct...
When the moon was first captured. Dr. Alfven believes, it did indeed curve through space in the opposite direction from the earth's rotation. And, as expected of such a satellite, it drew gradually closer to the earth. Its orbit became circular. About 2.5 billion years ago, the earth-moon system passed through a violent crisis. The approaching moon exerted more and more gravitational pull on the earth's oceans. Tides miles high swept around the globe in a few hours. At last the moon reached Roche's limit,* the closest that a satellite can come...
...shoot a bunch of copper wires into a thin, high band that could be used to relay radio microwaves around the curve of the earth. But even before the first rocket of the Air Force Project West Ford blasted off its pad, the protests of outraged scientists soared into orbit. Metal wires, the world's astronomers warned, would also reflect sunlight, fogging the photographic plates of optical telescopes. They would foul up radio astronomy by reflecting man-made radio waves and masquerading as distant stars or galaxies...
...protests were still mounting when the first attempt at Project West Ford flopped. Its collection of copper wares went into orbit as scheduled, but the wires failed to spread out. Circling the earth as a few lumps, they remained inactive, bothering neither optical nor radio telescopes...