Apologies for the thread bump, but I've just noticed Jay has put up an analysis of the Neville paper on Clavius. As always, a sterling job. Cheers Jay!

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"We need rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty!"

We've been talking about Neville Jones here. You might want to have a shufti.

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Everything I need to know I learned through Googling.

Jay misunderstands this bit from Jones:

This statement is not based on Jones' misunderstanding of rocketry but on his geocentrism-related belief that the Moon is traveling around the Earth at 61,000 mph - a speed certainly far greater than even a fully loaded Saturn V could match.

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Everything I need to know I learned through Googling.

Yeah, his idea was that the apollo couldn't match that speed, so as it passed into the moon's orbital path it would either be in front and get hit, or be behind and not be able to catch it.

And a speed that would make the moon's current orbit impossible using the Newtonian physics that Jones employs in that paper. He has equally proven that the moon is just an illusion. For his next paper he should check over The Mad Revisionists for some new material.

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There are 10 types of people in the world. Those who understand ternary, those who don't, and those waiting for a bus.
If logic doesn't work, then surely it does.

Well, the Apollo trajectory does just that: it aims for a certain point ahead of the moon, with the presumption that it will enter orbit around the moon at that point. You don't aim at the moon, or even for where the moon will be -- you aim for the point at which an orbit can be entered.

The method is called the "patched conic" approach. "Conic" in this case means a conic section. All orbits, as you may know, are conic sections. The conic sections in geometry are: a point, a line, a circle, an ellipse, a parabola, or a hyperbola. Orbits can exist in any of these geometries.

You consider a desired orbit around the moon and derive its geometry in terms of the conics. Then you consider the transfer orbit, or the translunar trajectory. That too has its analytical description. You arrange the orbits so that they "osculate", or share at most one point in common. The trick is to arrange the two orbits mathematically such that the state vector (the description of the spacecraft's dynamic state) is the same at that point in the two orbits. Thus the orbits are "patched" together with identical parameters. Geometrically you have to share a certain order of continuity. Dynamically your momentum and energy states have to correspond between the two orbits.

If that's not hard enough, we know that the orbits are perturbed as they meet. That is, you can't plot the transfer orbit solely thinking of the Earth. As you reach the apogee of that orbit, the moon's gravity will begin to change the trajectory and alter the orbit from its "pure" geometrical and dynamic circumstances. Similarly the moon-fixed orbit will suffer perturbation from the Earth and sun.

This makes it difficult to compute a patched conic analytically. Since this is what orbital mechanics calls a "limited three-body problem", you have to do it iteratively; there is no closed-form solution. You begin with the analytical consideration of the orbits and replot the perturbations iteratively until you no longer care about the error.

I think my mistake in dealing with Dr. Jones is presuming he knows anything at all about orbital mechanics. His cosmology seems to reject Newton and Kepler altogether, so it's useless pointing out that his inference is irrelevant and that orbital mechanics can deal with the "impossible" situation he believes he has outlined.

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"Facts are stubborn things." --John Adams
Clavius Moon Base

I am sure that everything you say is correct, JayUtah, and I applaud your style of debunking by replying to every single point with detailed expert knowledge. But I think that Neville's paper is fundamentally flawed in a way that can easily be explained to any layperson, whether the details are right or not. His trick is to make it appear that he is using conventional physics to prove it couldn't happen.

Basically, he's using Newtonian physics to do his calculations, but he is starting with a stationary earth which gives the moon a colossal orbital speed. He justifies this with a bit of hand waving about modern acentricity. He may well be right that about the trip being impossible in that scenario. But, of course, that scenario doesn't exist, Newtonian physics is not acentric, only general relativity is. If he wants to use Newtonian physics then he must take into account the rotation of the earth.

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There are 10 types of people in the world. Those who understand ternary, those who don't, and those waiting for a bus.
If logic doesn't work, then surely it does.

In his most recent papers, Jones has even rejected the inverse square law of gravitation, and proposed the cosmos to be about 60,000 miles in radius. So the Moon will not even exist as a world as we know it - the nearest analogy to his thinking is some kind of 'Truman Show' scenario, where a small, gravityless Moon whirls daily round the Earth attached to a crystalline sphere.

It's hard to even know where to start debunking such a cosmology, so I think Jay's approach of toppling the first domino (showing Jones' deliberate ignorance of Apollo/Saturn) is as valid as any other.

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"We need rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty!"

Then there are those fun things called "mascons" which require that you have a minimum orbit safety factor that keeps you from perigeeing too close to the Moon! 8)

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Based on the content of his works, I'm afraid the only effective debunking that might have an effect on "Dr." Jones would be provided by these folks.

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Don't get me wrong, Yorkshireman. I have nothing but admiration for Jay's knowledge and style of debunking. But I'm totally at a loss to think how his [ Jones's ] followers can believe a word he says when he uses physics that he questions in one paper to "prove" something in another, and when he blatently mis-applies conventional physics to construct one of his "even according to conventional physics...."

No expert knowledge is required to see how illogical Jones's papers are, but they still fall for it :-?

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There are 10 types of people in the world. Those who understand ternary, those who don't, and those waiting for a bus.
If logic doesn't work, then surely it does.

Yes his greatest game is to conflate his own view of science with that of mainstream science in a convoluted effort to malign conventional physics and astronomy. It is hilarious and tragic at the same time.

Not expert knowledge but some rudimentary knowledge and some I'm sure fail in that regard. As far as them falling for Dr Jones's nonsense I don't totally agree with you there. Sure there are some of his followers who lap up every word but those appear to have a very rudimentary knowledge about the world around them. To those people any science discussion may as well be in a foreign language. I have no idea how many individuals are subscribed to his list but there are only half a dozen or so that are regular posters and the majority of those do not agree totally with Dr Jones on the scientific aspects of Geocentricity.

They all believe that the Earth is immobile because the bible told them so however they are daily in a sea of information that conflicts with this viewpoint. What they seek is scientific confirmation to bolster their view and believe that the answer must be out there somewhere. Dr Jones provides a haven to hide from reality, a place they can communicate their ideas with like minded people without the clash that they find in the real world environment.

Some of his list participants have scientific training of their own either directly in the science field or at least in a technical area like communications. They are not so easily swayed by Dr Jones's pseudo science explanations. In addition there is constant friction in the list due to the participants varied religious views and in fact the only thing they seem to universally agree on from a scriptural point of view is that of Geocentrism. The only other common theme is an unhealthy belief of conspiracy theories and a distrust of authority.

Dr Jones has also made bold statements like the support for the moon landing hoax and the fact that mankind has not sent any spacecraft further than low Earth orbit. This of course provides support for his HB nonsense but he goes further out on a limb by claiming there are no space probes at Mars or Saturn etc and there is no such thing as geostationary satellites. From Dr Jones's point of view all such scientific endeavors are a conspiracy to deceive. Just how and for what purpose has never been addressed on the list. From what I have seen of his writings Dr Jones appears not to look for any information at all that conflicts with his view and is prepared to make the most ridiculous claims that could be countered with a 10 second Google search.

Some of his followers are of course not so reticent about getting outside views and you would be aware that at least one has visited here in the last 6 months to test the water. Another, in answer to Dr Jones's claim of the impossibility of landing anything on the Moon, recently posted a list of all the space craft that have been sent to the Moon either by the US or any other country. Such information directly counters the views of Dr Jones and much discussion has been held on the lists about geostationary satellites an item that Dr Jones of course claims does not exist. So in other words they make use of Dr Jones's hospitality but frequently dismiss or ignore what Dr Jones promotes much, to his displeasure.

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"conspiracy theories are the lazy man's version of erudition."--JayUtah