These beliefs took hold and were passed down from generation to generation, brainwashed into children from the cradle. Scientific interpretations about the world are skewed under the dogma of a round earth, and elaborate
phenomena and explanations are invented whenever an observation contradicts the status quo.
Why, for what purpose, would this dogmatic belief develop and proliferate? While the idea of a round Earth has existed since Hellenistic times, it's not universal throughout history since then. Early medieval scholars, for example, certainly had knowledge of a spherical Earth, but there were also some (a minority) who characterized it as a flat, round disk. The Islamic world introduced spherical trigonometry to Europe. Those two cultures quite obviously hated and competed fiercely with each other and had no reason to enforce each other's dogma. So why did the exchange of knowledge occur if it was just a dogmatic theory without supporting evidence nor practical value?
I'd like to see your evidence that flat Earth theories were actively and maliciously suppressed. There's been thousands of states since the Greeks, and a multitude of new religions and ideologies. Our scientific theories weren't all decided by a single governing body. They couldn't have all been working together in a coordinated effort to prop up a false idea.
You're taking a somewhat small and narrow view of history with that claim.
Astronomy
Astronomers observe the heavens and interpret, just as the Astrologer does. There is no real proof for their theories. The universe is not put under controlled conditions to come the the truth of a matter. The necessity of controlled experimentation is denied entirely. A Chemist is expected to create controlled tests to determine a truth. But Stephen Hawking gets away with building theory upon theory, a house of cards model of the universe which "stands on the shoulders of giants". Hawking performs zero experimentation on the universe before coming up with a theory like the metric expansion of space.
Historic parallax observations which compute the sun to be millions of miles distant on a Round Earth also say that it is thousands of miles distant under the interpretation of a flat one. The theory of gravity doesn't seem to work at large distances in space, causing the necessity for elaborate Dark Matter and Dark Energy theories which comprise 98% of the universe. The lunar eclipse and other celestial events are predicted by the analyzing patterns of past observations -- the same way the Ancient Babylonians, a Flat Earth society, predicted them.
So what you're basically claiming here is that purely observational study is not valid science, which is patently ridiculous. Calculating the population of a certain insect doesn't involve an experiment, and it occurs in an uncontrolled natural environment. Yet this is still science. Documenting a new species doesn't involve an experiment, and it occurs in an uncontrolled natural environment. Yet this is still science. I could go on and on. An enormous percentage of our scientific knowledge comes from simple observation of the natural world.
Observational study doesn't remove the burden for evidence at all. Astronomical theories are supported by mathematics and their compliance with data we have from repeated observation. Plenty of examples of this evidence have been given in this thread already, you just simply choose to deny it.
There's also nothing inherently wrong with build new theories off of existing ones, so long as the older theory continues to be upheld by evidence.
Satellite Communication Companies
Satellite communication companies aren't in the business of putting satellites into orbit. Do you think Direct TV has launch capabilities and access to restricted orbital rocket technologies which are 98% similar to an ICBM? They rely on the government putting up communication satellites for them and giving them a way to feed in their signal.
Again, this is taking a small and narrow view of the world. Twelve different countries have launched satellites into orbit, using their own indigenously developed vehicles. "The government" (you're from the US, I presume) isn't the only entity that has that capability.
The motivation is simple. NASA must exist for reasons of national security. Having the ability to launch rockets into orbit also means the ability to put weapons into orbit and obliterate any country at the push of a button.
The US can obliterate other countries with the push of a button using IRBMs and ICBMs without the need to "fake" space travel. Also launching nuclear weapons from spacecraft is banned by international treaties and there's no evidence that the US has broken them, so that's not much of a scare factor.
Following WWII the race to space lasted for 12 years, with one infamous failure and rocket disaster after another.
Experimentation typically results in failure many times before success is achieved, so I'm not sure how that's supposed to disprove anything.
Don't you think it's a coincidence that within three months of the USSR claiming to have launched Sputnik into orbit, the US claimed to put a satellite into orbit as well?
No it wasn't a coincidence, this was during the Cold War which involved fierce competition between the USSR and the United States. So it only makes sense that they were racing to develop better technology and ended up being neck-in-neck at times. The building and launching of Sputnik, and the first US satellite is well-documented public information if you'd like to read about it for yourself.