Hi, Nick.

Ignoring some arithmetic snafus
on my previous posts.

I have to ask you this:
Are you saying that a hypothetical astronaut, his feet anchored on to the outside of an orbiting spacecraft, should he have on a hypothetical
easily-flexible spacesuit, having a rock
in his glove...are you saying that he could throw that rock 'straight up', in the direction opposite [180 degrees] to that of gravity's pull, and gravity will not slow down the VERTICAL COMPONENT of that rock's velocity to zero?

Common, Nick!
I don't buy that from you for a second! Even orbiting say 500-600km up, gravity
doesn't vanish away as you know full well. In fact gravitational acceleration forces 500-600km up are about 80 percent of surface values.
At 500-600km up, an orbiting object constantly 'falls' at an acceleration rate of 8 meters/second squared.

So I frimly state this conclusion, Nick:
Whether it's a rock thrown 'UPWARD'
from an orbiting spacecraft, or a pendulum bob swinging 'UPWARD' as the pendulum is attached to an orbiting platform, in both cases the CLIMBING
VELOCITY of each object will decrease to zero at a rate dictated by gravitational acceleration values
in the vicinity.
REMEMBER: velocity has two vector components: speed and direction.

EX: If it's initially orbiting 500-600km up, an object
[rock, spacecraft, pendulum, etc] will initially lose 8 meters/second of
CLIMBING VELOCITY every second as the object ascends higher, away from the direction of gravity's
pull. The pendulum will be slowed down
to zero as it swings upward, assuming
the pendulum arm is of sufficient length.

Jacob

Jacob