Explore "Space Tug" by Murray Leinster on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
But even at ten gravities' drive it takes time to travel 4,000 miles. At / three, and coasting a great deal of the way, it takes much longer. The / Platform circled Earth in four hours and a little more. Anything / intending interception and rising straight up needed to start skyward / long before the Platform was overhead. A three-g rocket would start / while the Platform was still below the western horizon from its / launching-spot. Especially if it planned to coast part of its / journey -- and a three-gravity rocket would have to coast most of the way.
So there was time. Coasting, the rising manned rocket would be losing / speed. If it planned to go no higher than the Platform's orbit, its / upward velocity would be zero there. If it were intercepted 500 miles / down, it would be rising at an almost leisurely rate, and Joe and the / Chief could check their Earthward plunge and match its rising rate.