Rope Around the Earth

Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to tie a rope around the Earth at the equator. How many feet of rope would you need?

Now pretend we want the rope to "float" one foot above the surface all the way around the equator. How many more feet of rope do we have need?

Now let's do the same thing on the moon. How many feet of rope do we need to add to make it float one foot above the surface of the moon?

Why do the answers turn out this way? What is really going on?