A recent joke on the comedy panel show 8 out of 10 cats prompted
this question. I'm pretty sure the answer's no, but hopefully
someone can surprise me. If you put a person in a balloon, such
that the balloon ascended to the upper levels of the atmosphere,
is it theoretically possible that an orbiting satellite's (i.e.
a moon's) gravity would become strong enough to start pulling
you towards it, taking over as the lifting force from your
buoyancy? Clearly this wouldn't work on Earth, as there's no
atmosphere between the Earth and the moon, but would it be
possible to have a satellite share an atmosphere with its planet
such that this would be a possibility, or would any shared
atmosphere cause too much drag to allow for the existence of any
satellite? If it were possible, would it also be possible to
take a balloon up to the satellite's surface, or would the
moon's gravity ensure that its atmosphere was too dense near the
surface for a landing to be possible thus leaving the balloonist
suspended in equilibrium