What relevance would me answering the satellite questions make?
Someone on here said that my claim that a large spy satellite which had been spotted spying over Japan was false and that satellites could not possibly stay stationary over one country.

Ill remind you of what was said.

First of all JayUtah commented that ‘It's not as easy to hide a satellite as Sibrel believes.’

To which I replied :'Perhaps you could tell this to China who only recently discovered a huge American spy satellite watching over them.'

Jay Utah came back with:'Hogwash. Reconaissance satellites are continuously in various altitude orbits at high inclinations, passing over most of the earth's surface at any one time. It is impossible according to orbital mechanics to make a recon satellite "hover" over some particular part of the earth.'

And someone else commented that it would be impossible to position a satellite over one country.

To prove my point and inform you all of the event I not only posted an article by a someone who has worked with NASA in the past, relating to the story, I also posted a link (which I copied and pasted part of) to illustrate that I was in fact correct in believing that a satellite could stay in orbit above a particular spot.

The problem that you pointed out was actually a mistake about geostationary/geosynchronous satellites on the site that I linked to and not my own.

You can hardly accuse me of not answering this particular question.

I have now written to Mr. Oberg to explain further and hope to receive a reply soon.

I hope you'll take his word for it more than mine. check out his website at http://www.jamesoberg.com/


Thankyou

CosmicDave

What relevance would me answering the satellite questions make?

It would substantiate your claim that you actually know something about satellites and orbits.

Someone on here said that my claim that a large spy satellite which had been spotted spying over Japan was false and that satellites could not possibly stay stationary over one country.

No, that spy satellites could not possibly do that. The statement you quote from me clearly establishes that.

... I also posted a link (which I copied and pasted part of) to illustrate that I was in fact correct in believing that a satellite could stay in orbit above a particular spot.

You started talking about spy satellites and then tried to support your statement with evidence that has nothing to do with spy satellites. And if were able to answer the questions I put to you (which you obviously can't) you would know why your examples were irrelevant. But you can't, so you don't.

The problem that you pointed out was actually a mistake about geostationary/geosynchronous satellites on the site that I linked to and not my own.

But you didn't catch the mistake. You reproduced it as if it were God's own truth about satellites. In fact you can't tell which of your sources are reliable and which are not. This is the hallmark of someone dabbling in matters he doesn't understand.

I hope you'll take his word for it more than mine.

But our argument is not with him; it's with you. And you -- not Mr. Oberg -- are the one putting on airs and pretending you know more about these topics than we. Therefore it is from you that we demand explanations.

You have a habit of reproducing other people's arguments without really understanding them. You pretend that parroting them makes you seem intelligent. But as soon as you run into a little trouble from people who do understand those arguments, and in fact know why they're wrong, you try to shift responsibility elsewhere.

You're no different than any of the other conspiracy theorists who tout their iron-clad proof of this or that, but when you ask them a few simple questions to test their knowledge, then out come the excuses why they don't have to submit to such tests. There are those reading here who have in their possession my answers to these questions and who can vouch for my ability to answer them and discuss them (and any others) to any required degree of detail.

You, sir, are a complete fraud and it's been made painfully apparent here. The eight questions I asked you would have taken you less than ten minutes to answer if you really knew anything about satellites or orbital mechanics. And had you been able to answer them, few people would have had cause to further question your expertise. But apparently you prefer to be suspected as a charlatan rather than open your mouth and remove all doubt.

I say put up or shut up.

After having a look about Mr. Oberg's page I can only hope you included a link to your site in your message.
[img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img]

NO Satellite can maintain position over Japan (without constantly using up maneuvering fuel, and that would run out mighty quick.) Japan is completely north of the equator. Geostationary satellites must remain above a spot *on* the equator, and geosynchronous satellites must balance their time north and south of the equator (a ground trace would look something like the figure-8 of the analemma.)

(Andre Norton, if memory serves, wrote a science fiction novel entitled "World of Three Rings." One cover artist obligingly drew a picture of a world with three separate Saturn-like rings -- stacked parallel to one another like pancakes. This is, unfortunately, wholly impossible!)

Silas

Yes, me and Mr Oberg have had our differences in the past. But, just because we may not have agreed then does not mean that I will just fob off everything he has to say in the future, which seems to be the case with you and me.

This arguement just seems to be going around and around in circles because I drop a little information and then someone says, 'hang on a minute, prove it'. So, off I go, I find an article to answer the persons accusation that satellites cannot hover over a particular place. Then I post an article by a highly qualified person who works in the aerospace industry to substantiate my claim of the spy satellite over Japan, and you still say that I am a fraud.

I want to say at this point by the way that at no point did I or the article I posted mention that the satellite was hovering, it was someone on here who said that a satellite couldn't hover, hence why I posted the article about geostational satellites. The two are unrelated.

I have NEVER claimed that I am a satellite expert, but know from my little knowledge that satellites can stay stationary as is common in the use of TV satellites (of which I commented). It is JayUtah's theory that someone cannot comment if they don't work in that field which is complete crap. I said that a spy satellite had been spotted spying on Japan and I'm then accused of lying.

This is not a lie and I have posted the evidence.

I said 'Perhaps you could tell this to China who only recently discovered a huge American spy satellite watching over them.'

This is the first part of the article again so read it carefully.
_______________________________
Okayama - A group of japanese astronomers watching the heavens around the clock to spot any sign of huge asteroids and comets apparently found an undisclosed spy satellite, they announced Thursday.

The unidentified object was spotted at the Japan Spaceguard Association's observation center in Bisei, Okayama prefecture, in december last year.

Officials of the association said they have since studied a list of over 8,000 man-made objects in space compiled by the north american aerospace defense command (norad), but it was not registered despite its massive size -- the satellite has a diameter of 50 meters.

Aerospace engineering specialist Nobuo Nakatomi said the object was likely to be a spy satellite.
_____________________________

I hope that this fully explains what has happened during this particular subject and that you can see that I have, once again, been misquoted or misunderstood.


Cheers,

Cosmic Dave

Silas,
How does Japan receive satellite TV then if satellites cannot stay stationary above it?

Think about it.

I hope someone on here is going to take him to task like they have me.

[Re c-dave on japanese TV] The satellites aren't above Japan. They're approximately above the equator, and any dish in Japan looking at these birds is looking up and south. The southernmost island in the Japanese chain is roughly 29 deg. North.

[Re the triple-ring planet]Yeah, and in that movie, "Pitch Black", they show a planet with a beautiful (and quite impossible) double-stack ring.

cosmicdave, if you don't want to answer Jay's questions to help establish your bona fides, would you care to answer my one single question about your claim on the AGC?

Yes, me and Mr Oberg have had our differences in the past...
I like that. "The President and I have had our differences in the past..." If pressed, I can come up with a list of other major figures with which I have had differences [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img]

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: sts60 on 2002-06-06 17:32 ]</font>

Because the satellite IS NOT hovering over Japan! It is over the equator, but is at such a high altitude, it has an entire hemisphere in it's line of sight. Sure, near the edge of the hemisphere the signal won't be as clear as it would be at nadir.

Jeezzzzzzzz

You really really do NOT get it, do you?

CJSF

__________________
Two years ago moved from my town
I was looking up past the city lights
But the city lights got in my way

See the constellation ride across the sky
No cigar, no lady on his arm
Just a guy made of dots and lines

-from "See The Constellation"
by They Might Be Giants

I would assume a satellite at equatorial GSO would be able to receive and transmit signals from a place as far north as Japan, considering GSOs have to be placed farther out. There wouldn't be a problem with line-to-site.


Adam

Why? He's right, as you would have learned if you had listened to the answers people here were giving you rather than playing a childish game of contridiction and evasion.

Now answer the post above...
I don't see anyone coming forward and agreeing that you all misread what I had to say.

Thats all for now, I haven't the time to stay on here all night and answer questions that you probably wont believe anyway.

Goodnight.

CD, you have this annoying habit of dragging the discussion, kicking and screaming, away from the topic at hand when you are stuck.

Allow me to drag it back.

You and your ilk say humans cannot travel beyond the Van Allen belts. Because of this and other factors, NASA decided to fake the lunar landings by leaving the astronauts in orbit during the flight. However, we then point out that it would impossible to put something as large as the CM into orbit without it being seen.

You then come up with "proof" that something can be hidden in orbit, a news article that states Japanese astronomers have found a spy statellite in orbit, the launch of which was never reported.

My first thought is that your article proves our point, in that a secret spy satellite is discovered in orbit, easily seen in binoculars, no less.

But then you launch into a lenghty diversion discussing geosynchronous satellites (incorrectly), but never coming back to the original problem, which is, how to hide the CM in orbit.

So now the ball is in your court. All you have to do is tell us how NASA hid the spacecraft.



<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Tomblvd on 2002-06-06 17:45 ]</font>

Yeah, I just bet you have.

BTW, did anyone else notice that Mr. Oberg had "Bad Astronomy" as the third listing on his links page? [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_smile.gif[/img]

Hi, John,

Gotta quibble a bit here.

First, the Saturn 5 did in fact have its own independent guidance system (though I don't know if it used a computer exactly like the AGC or some other approach). The S-V did in fact control its own flight from liftoff to orbit without the need for ground control (though the controllers could intervene and override if necessary). The first couple S-V launches were unmanned and got themselves into orbit just fine (despite the fact that they had some serious engine problems on the second and third stages).

Second, the launch of a booster from pad to orbit is most definitely *not* a descent run backwards, except in the trivial sense of "running the film backwards". Not, that is, unless you can figure out a way for the booster to steadily fill its fuel tanks as it descends!

But I undestand that you were referring specifically to the problem of guidance. I submit that the S-V had more than enough "intelligence" to control its attitude and trajectory during launch, but I wouldn't try to argue that this is a problem equivalent to performing a landing.

OK, looked around and found the source article. It was not written by James Oberg, but as far as I can tell was from the newspaper Manichi Shimbun, April 4:
http://mdn.mainichi.co.jp/news/archi...dm024000c.html

This article claims a "diameter" of 50 meters, which is ridculous. A satellite might have a solar array span around that big, though.

- If the bird is "visible in the southeast sky", then it is a geosynchronous satellite.
- If they didn't just make a mistake with a commercial comsat, or some sort of weather satellite, then it could be a secret bird.
- It's not an imager if it's a classified bird in geosynchronous orbit. It could theoretically be a sigint (doubtful), or perhaps an IR warning satellite like DSP.
- At best, cosmicdave's assertion that it is "watching over" Japan (he corrected himself, then switched back and forth in later posts) is a funny way to say it. A geosynchronous bird "watches over" a big chunk of longitudinal hemisphere, not just one little island chain.Jay pointed out that reconnaisance satellites (a term which generally refers to high-resolution imagers) are moving in low orbits. To someone unfamiliar with satellite operations, I concede this might sound like "satellites can't stay over one spot". In any case, this satellite is not really over Japan. But let's move on.Well, the article wasn't by someone who worked with NASA in the past; it wasn't written by James Oberg. A satellite can't stay in orbit over any particular spot, only ones over the equator (roughly speaking).

Cosmicdave, you incorporated the quoted article into your argument. It's not nice to blame your source for a mistake. And, in fact, the article didn't make any explicit mistakes of fact other than the "50 meters" figure.

Yes, you did answer the question, after a fashion."Geostationary", not "geostational". But that's not the same thing as "geosynchronous". Anyway, to repeat, the article was not by James Oberg as you alleged, and the satellite wasn't really over Japan.

No one here has called you a fraud. But your arguments and knowledge of the topic are faulty.You have repeatedly belittled the knowledge of people who are for-real satellite experts. This tends to come across as someone who thinks they know better, i.e., who thinks they themselves are a bigger expert.

Jay has not said that people can't comment if they don't work in a field. But he has pretty much said that people need to know what they're talking about if they dispute an expert's opinion on a technical matter in that expert's field.

Your post about the satellite isn't a lie, but the article doesn't really support your contention that the bird is "spying on Japan". Maybe it is, but what I've read about it suggests that at most it's gathering signals or looking for launches over a vast region, far larger than Japan.

Going back to what started it all:
cosmicdave brought up the "spy satellite" as support for the notion that Apollo radio transmissions were faked by an Earth-orbiting (non-translunar, Jay!) satellite. We have pointed out that that is physically impossible. So whether or not it's easy to "hide" a satellite in LEO, or GEO, is a moot point anyway.

cosmicdave, now that I have answered your post per your request: Do you now understand that Apollo radio signals could not have been faked by such a satellite?


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: sts60 on 2002-06-06 19:21 ]</font>

Donnie B., I know, I know. Maybe I should have said similar problem. The similarity is that the vehicle was to follow a predefined path. The guidance system of the Saturn V also have to control 11 different engines, staging, avoiding the tower, wind sheer, etc. It also had to correct for premature engine shutdowns, plus various abort modes. Nobody seems to question that the Saturn V could get to orbit, even the HB's. With this complex system, the SIVB plus the CSM and LM had to get to a certain height, at a certain speed and in a certain direction. Add to this the complexity of having to respond to the lightening fuel load, and it's no mean feat.

The AGC on the LM had to control a single engine, following a predetermined path, allow for fuel use, conpensate for fuel 'slosh' (on 11), and arrive somewhere near the lunar surface with enough fuel to land and not too fast. All this with no wind sheer, and minimal abort options (basically, cut loose the descent stage and haul a** back to orbit). To my mind, getting a Saturn V into orbit automatically (which the HBs admit is possible) is much more difficult than landing on the Moon with the help of the AGC.

How odd. Most HBs seem obstinate and incorrect, but this is the first one I can recall who actually seemed incapable of grasping simple concepts. The rest of them at least argue that physics is wrong or something that lends an air of internal consistency.

CD seems like he's honestly too stupid to understand.

I apologize for what would be ad hominem in a debate. But this isn't a debate. It's really quite painful to read.

I now find myself wondering... I'd assumed HBs were simply deluded or misinformed. I surely did not know how to answer all their arguments prior to coming to this site. I hadn't considered the possibility that some of them are simply incapable of learning.

What a depressing thought.

(Ss this is rather un-astronomy related, feel free to delete it if it is deemed inappropriate. I will do so myself if others (besides CD) wish.)

While it is a touch ad hominem, it's true...

In terms of general rhetoric, there are lots of ways to be wrong. Since I spend a lot of time doing exactly that (i.e., being wrong) I've found the best approach is to admit it, apologize, learn the lesson, and move on.

That is morally difficult for some people; instead of attributing it to stupidity, I think it should be seen as a moral stance. Sort of like John Wayne never backing down from a gunfight in a movie...

I was once in a political discussion where someone said that a candidate had won a "majority." In fact, it had been a plurality. No big deal, right? The guy refused to accept his error. He went down fighting. No dictionary citation, no political resource, no one's word was good enough. He was actually trying to redefine the word to his own meaning rather than merely acknowledge a trivial error, for which anyone would readily have forgiven him.

It doesn't have much to do with astronomy, or even science, but it is at the heart of civil debate, and it also cuts very deep into the issue of the role of public discourse in the pursuit of truth.

Our good host, the Bad Astronomer, has banned people for saying, "You fool," but never for posting foolish ideas. The former is moderation; the latter is mere censorship.

(By the way, the world is flat. Just thought you'd like to know...) (grin!)

Silas