Accidentally up voted you :)<p>They get to that vast 8km&#x2F;s veloctiy you mention with huge rocket engines. Then they turn them off.<p>At that point the astronauts and their craft are in freefall.<p>You mention an outward &#x27;vector&#x27;? You can only talk about forces and their effects on masses really. There&#x27;s an <i>intertia</i> that resists the downward acceleration, but that&#x27;s not a force.