otherwise, we assume that an object will escape the gravitational field of a uniform spherical planet by moving away from it and that the only significant force acting on the moving object is the planet's gravity. Imagine that a spaceship of mass m is initially at a distance r from the center of mass of the planet, whose mass is M, and its initial speed is equal to its escape velocity, . At its final state, it will be an infinite distance away from the planet, and its speed will be negligibly small. Kinetic energy K and gravitational potential energy Ug are the only types of energy that we will deal with (we will ignore the drag of the atmosphere), so by the conservation of energy, We can set Kfinal = 0 because final velocity is arbitrarily small, and = 0 because final distance is infinity, so where μ is the standard gravitational parameter. The same result is obtained by a relativistic calculation, in which case the variable r represents the radial coordinate or reduced circumference of the Schwarzschild metric. Defined a little more formally, "escape velocity" is the initial speed required to go from an initial point in a gravitational potential field to infinity and end at infinity with a residual speed of zero, without any additional acceleration. All speeds and velocities are measured with respect to the field. Additionally, the escape velocity at a point in space is equal to the speed that an object would have if it started at rest from an infinite distance and was pulled by gravity to that point. In common usage, the initial point is on the surface of a planet or moon. On the surface of the Earth, the escape velocity is about 11.2 km/s, which is approximately 33 times the speed of sound (Mach 33) and several times the muzzle velocity of a rifle bullet (up to 1.7 km/s). However, at 9,000 km altitude in "space", it is slightly less than 7.1 km/s. Note that this escape velocity is relative to a non-rotating frame of reference, not relative to the moving surface of the planet or moon (see below). The escape velocity is independent of the mass of the escaping object. It does not matter if the mass is 1 kg or 1,000 kg; what differs is the amount of energy required. For an object of mass the energy required