[???]

So I went to the frequently asked questions and it had a subsection on this. However, it didn't actually answer the question - it went on a tangent about how "we are not suggesting that space agencies are aware that the earth is flat and actively covering the fact up. They depict the earth as being round simply because that is what they expect it to be."
So does this mean that people have never been to space?
As I said, the answer doesn't really address the question, and just wondering what the answer is!
If you could help, that'd be great.

[SeaCritique]

There was a paragraph before the one you quoted:

"The most commonly accepted explanation of this is that the space agencies of the world are involved in a conspiracy faking space travel and exploration. This likely began during the Cold War's 'Space Race', in which the USSR and USA were obsessed with beating each other into space to the point that each faked their accomplishments in an attempt to keep pace with the other's supposed achievements. Since the end of the Cold War, however, the conspiracy is most likely motivated by greed rather than political gains, and using only some of their funding to continue to fake space travel saves a lot of money to embezzle for themselves."

Personally, I doubt the validity of any space program.

[TomFoolery]

So I went to the frequently asked questions and it had a subsection on this. However, it didn't actually answer the question - it went on a tangent about how "we are not suggesting that space agencies are aware that the earth is flat and actively covering the fact up. They depict the earth as being round simply because that is what they expect it to be."
So does this mean that people have never been to space?
As I said, the answer doesn't really address the question, and just wondering what the answer is!
If you could help, that'd be great.

If you are prone to doubt that people have been to space, think again.
Remember the Concorde jet? that buzzard flew so high that it was practically in the same vacuum of space. At least 90% of the way there. That thing seriously could have maintained a living pressure inside the crew quarters while in space with a few modifications. And that was in 1965! So possible? Definitely. There's no space like home.

[xasop]

Remember the Concorde jet? that buzzard flew so high that it was practically in the same vacuum of space. At least 90% of the way there.

During testing, Concorde F-WTSB attained the highest altitude recorded in sustained level flight of a passenger aircraft of 68,000 ft, in June 1973.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kármán_line

Are you trying to tell me that 20 km is 90% of 100 km?

[ChrisTP]

Parsifal, not all gradients are linear.

[AATW]

Personally, I doubt the validity of any space program.

On what basis?
I mean, you were right in the other thread - I didn't see the shuttle launch "into space", but I did see it launch and I didn't see it land anywhere. And not in the way that I don't see a plane land anywhere, it went straight up (I don't remember if I saw its path curve as it starts to head into an orbit, obviously something going into orbit can't just go up). So rocket technology definitely exists, why would I doubt space travel is a thing? So many countries have launched things into space, private companies have started to get in on the act - some of them have been paid handsomely to launch satellites for people, you'd think that those people would soon realise that their satellite isn't working. Or is your suggestion that there is some alternative technology which multiple organisations and countries are using in lieu of satellites but for some weird reason they are pretending it's satellites?!

Obviously you can't be a flat earther and believe in space travel, but I haven't seen much basis for thinking that space travel doesn't exist other than rather large slices of cognitive dissonance and confirmation bias.

[WellRoundedIndividual]

So are we going to deny that Virgin Galactic Unity went up 51 or so miles? That's 83%.

[plebeian]

In regards to the Concorde, and atmospheric pressure in general, 90% of the atmosphere is within the first 10% of its altitude.  You can not simply compare the service altitude of the Concorde to the theoretical altitude of space in the manner that you did when discussing pressure.

[TomFoolery]

Remember the Concorde jet? that buzzard flew so high that it was practically in the same vacuum of space. At least 90% of the way there.

During testing, Concorde F-WTSB attained the highest altitude recorded in sustained level flight of a passenger aircraft of 68,000 ft, in June 1973.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kármán_line

Are you trying to tell me that 20 km is 90% of 100 km?

How kind of you to grace my post with such a well researched reply!

So at 68,000 ft altitude, the air pressure is about 0.73 PSI.
Considering that sea-level air pressure is around 14.7 PSI, and space is around 0, we see that 0.73PSI is 5% of normal sea level air pressure.

So you're right I was wrong, the Concorde didn't fly in an atmospheric pressure that was 90% of the vacuum of space, it flew in conditions that was 95% of the vacuum of space!

Another 0.73psi less, and it *would* have been in space, but obviously it wouldn't have been flying.

[TomFoolery]

In regards to the Concorde, and atmospheric pressure in general, 90% of the atmosphere is within the first 10% of its altitude.  You can not simply compare the service altitude of the Concorde to the theoretical altitude of space in the manner that you did when discussing pressure.

I don't see why not. As you should know, the air we breath is pressurized at about 14.7 pounds per square inch.
That literally means that if you closed the cap on a pop bottle and sent it to space, there would be air pressure inside it pressing out on all parts of the bottle -- 14.7 pounds on each square inch.
(Till it got cold and the air shrank but never mind that.)

So the real heart of the issue is whether or not the Concorde - or any manmade vessel - did or could withstand the vacuum of space with people onboard.

So the Concorde, flying at 68,000 feet, with 14.7 psi absolute inside, and 0.73 psi outside, had a pressure on its cabin walls of almost 14 psi!

By the way, people can survive in air pressures quite a bit below 14.7 psi.
In fact, a lot of older passenger jetliners actually fly with around 12 psi in the cabin.

So the body of the Concorde could very easily hold an air pressure that would very easily allow people to live quite comfortably whilst in space.

It is very meaningful to demonstrate that people have flown millions of flights in an aircraft that literally withstood 95% of the vacuum of space while maintaining 14.7psi in the cabin, and it very well could (structurally) have maintained a living cabin pressure of 12psi while in the total vacuum of space.

(Now obviously its engines and stuff were made for air breathing areas, but I'm talking about the cabin construction which had to handle the pressure differential of space.)

[SeaCritique]

On what basis?
I mean, you were right in the other thread - I didn't see the shuttle launch "into space", but I did see it launch and I didn't see it land anywhere. And not in the way that I don't see a plane land anywhere, it went straight up (I don't remember if I saw its path curve as it starts to head into an orbit, obviously something going into orbit can't just go up). So rocket technology definitely exists, why would I doubt space travel is a thing? So many countries have launched things into space, private companies have started to get in on the act - some of them have been paid handsomely to launch satellites for people, you'd think that those people would soon realise that their satellite isn't working. Or is your suggestion that there is some alternative technology which multiple organisations and countries are using in lieu of satellites but for some weird reason they are pretending it's satellites?!

Obviously you can't be a flat earther and believe in space travel, but I haven't seen much basis for thinking that space travel doesn't exist other than rather large slices of cognitive dissonance and confirmation bias.

You don't remember if you saw its path curve or not, though. And if a Boeing 747 is a speck at seven miles up, imagine that a shuttle must be a much, much smaller (if not imperceptible) speck at 20, 30, 40 miles. I don't think your observations "definitely" confirm, nor do they deny, rocket technology. It's a big leap from rocket, or rocket-like, technology to space travel.

With governments and private companies launching satellites into space, that's a bit more complicated. I can see (what's known as) the ISS passing over head sometimes with my own two eyes. I imagine there is some stuff up there; I wouldn't call that a full-fledged space program. Maybe there exists an alternative technology, maybe not. I have no good reasons to think so. Clearly, the relationship between governments and private companies is mutually beneficial -- governments get lobbied by private companies which pay politicians handsomely, and said-politicians lighten up a bit on said-private companies and afford them some wiggle room.

[Balls Dingo]

With governments and private companies launching satellites into space, that's a bit more complicated.

I just don't know how geostationary satellites exist in the FE model. Geostationary orbit makes sense with a rotating sphere because the satellites are constantly moving (in space, not in relation to a location on Earth). But to just sit stationary in the same place in space without drifting off? That defies all known physics. And we know they are there and we know that they are at an altitude of 36000km or we wouldn't get a TV signal when we point satellite dishes at the correct azimuth and elevation from different locations. Maybe they get stuck in the dome

[AATW]

It's a big leap from rocket, or rocket-like, technology to space travel.

Is it, though? I mean, we can't fly into space using planes but there's a good reason for that. Planes require lift, generated by air flow over the wing.
No atmosphere = no lift.
This is where rockets win, they provide thrust regardless of whether there's an atmosphere. Rockets are the technology we need to get into space, and we demonstrably have it.

We went from the first powered flight in 1903 to the first supersonic flight in 1947, to Concorde in 1969.
[Note that one could argue that technology in this area never really moved on since, if anything it has regressed in terms of speed. But that is because travelling at supersonic speeds is expensive and was never economical for passenger planes, Concorde kept running because of the prestige and it raised the profile of the BA brand, not because it made money. The technology to go much faster certainly exists]

Point being, driven in no small part by the two World Wars, technology in this area progressed fast.
ICBMs have existed for decades:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intercontinental_ballistic_missile
They have a huge range and basically do go into space.

This is where I take issue with the Occam's Razor Wiki page:

What's the simplest explanation; that NASA has successfully designed and invented never before seen rocket technologies from scratch which can accelerate 100 tons of matter straight up at 7 miles per second, and that NASA can do the impossible on a daily basis, explore the solar system, and constantly wow the nation by landing a man on the moon and sending robots to mars; or is the simplest explanation that they really can't do all of that stuff?

Who says NASA invented "never before seen rocket technologies from scratch"? That's a complete straw man.
The Russians got into space before the US did. For a while Russia were ahead of the US in the space race, first satellite, first person in space, etc. The US only caught up and overtook when Kennedy made that famous speech and poured a LOT of money into the project. Like all technical advances, there were a lot of incremental stages. NASA were nowhere near the first to build rockets, the first long range rockets were the V-2s built by the Germans. Had NASA been formed in 1910 and suddenly started claiming that they could launch stuff into the space a matter of years after we first invented powered flight then I'd agree that was a bit suspicious, but it took decades of developing technology and NASA were not the pioneers by any means although they became the best in the business in the 60s when Kennedy threw enough money at it. Look at the budget they had in the 60s compared with now:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budget_of_NASA

It's hardly a surprise or suspicious that they made progress given that funding, but, again, that progress wasn't "from scratch", it was built on decades of rocket research and progress in other countries.

Your arguments are all very "Devil's advocate". You insinuate and try and cast doubt but you have no actual solid evidence of anything.
Yes, it's possible that the whole thing is fake. In the same way that it's possible that anything is faked. I'd suggest rewriting that Occam's Razor paragraph as follows

What's the simplest explanation; that NASA, Russia, Europe, India, China and all the other countries who have space programs are all faking space travel, the regular rocket launches which are witnessed by people all around the world are just for show, that the over 500 people who have been to space are all lying - including the 7 "space tourists" who paid handsomly for the privilege, that the ISS is not orbiting the globe despite it being visible from earth in the exact time and place stated, that GPS really uses some other technology than orbiting satellites, that geostationary TV satellites are really some other objects, that all footage and photos from space going back over 50 years are all faked; or is the simplest explanation that the rocket technology first available in the second world war has been developed and really can launch people and things into space?

[WellRoundedIndividual]

Just read up on Ray Kurzweil and the Law of Accelerating Returns. Advances in technology are on exponential curve. There is one particular graph showing the advances in computing power. Just looking at that alone shows that we are more than capable of getting a rocket into space. You hold a cellphone that is more powerful than a laptop from 5 years ago. And you think we can't figure out how to get a rocket into space? We have had geniuses like Nikola Tesla invent radio (shut up, Marconi lovers), AC electricity, bladeless turbines, the Tesla coils used in power transmission transformers. And you want to doubt our ability for rocket flight?

http://www.kurzweilai.net/the-law-of-accelerating-returns

[AATW]

Just read up on Ray Kurzweil and the Law of Accelerating Returns. Advances in technology are on exponential curve. There is one particular graph showing the advances in computing power. Just looking at that alone shows that we are more than capable of getting a rocket into space. You hold a cellphone that is more powerful than a laptop from 5 years ago. And you think we can't figure out how to get a rocket into space? We have had geniuses like Nikola Tesla invent radio (shut up, Marconi lovers), AC electricity, bladeless turbines, the Tesla coils used in power transmission transformers. And you want to doubt our ability for rocket flight?

http://www.kurzweilai.net/the-law-of-accelerating-returns

We all have devices in our pockets which can tell us where we are and how to get to anywhere else, which can tell you the news, you can look up basically anything using them, you can take videos and photos, you can book tickets to things. You can talk to people, do video calls. You can play games on them and do all kinds of things with different applications. You can talk to the bastard things now and they answer you and, mostly, understand you pretty well and tell you the answer to what you asked.
This has all happened in the last 20 years or so. You could quite easily write an Occam's Razor paragraph expressing incredulity that any of this technology can exist. And it's rockets powerful enough to get into space - something we managed to build soon after World War II - that people with an agenda are choosing to doubt.

[WellRoundedIndividual]

The idea of rockets and rocket propulsion has been around for a long time.

https://www.sciencelearn.org.nz/resources/1868-brief-history-of-rockets-timeline

This isnt too greatly detailed, but I tried to find something that wasnt part of the NASA website in case anyone freaked out.

[retlaw]

People have been into space. How have they not discovered that the earth is flat

They have. NASA gets in 2019 $19.5 billion. It pays to shut up.
Space starts at 50 miles.
Ends at the dome.
Then its called the heavens.

Watch these 7 rockets hit the dome. It gets real good at number 5.
US military tried to blow the dome in the 50's with project Fish Bowl. The highest bomb they set off had some interesting visual effects.

[SeaCritique]

It's a big leap from rocket, or rocket-like, technology to space travel.

Is it, though?

Yes. It is a big leap from a seven-year old boy firing off a cheap firework in his parent's backyard to men taking a rocket nearly 250,000 miles to the Moon, landing on it and hopping around, and then flying back.

ICBMs have existed for decades:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intercontinental_ballistic_missile
They have a huge range and basically do go into space.

The Wikipedia entry says that they have a minimum range of 3,400 miles. Space treaties and aerospace records keeping use the Karman line as the "start" of space at 62 miles. The "ISS" is, supposedly, at 250 miles. You're right -- the achievable range is more than sufficient to reach what is defined as space.

But an ICBM isn't designed for space travel -- it's a military weapon. And going from, say, 5,000 miles of range to 250,000 miles (plus a return journey), seems a massive leap. I'm still unconvinced, too, that there is much to gain from sending people into space. Doing so was demonstrating political power and supposed scientific prowess originally. There are desirable results from faking space travel, though.

I disagree with your Occam's Razor bit too. To some degree, that quote is attacking a straw man. Better phrased, it might read, "NASA (supposedly) demonstrated a degree of, and function for, rocket technology never conceived prior."

[TomFoolery]

People have been into space. How have they not discovered that the earth is flat

They have. NASA gets in 2019 $19.5 billion. It pays to shut up.
Space starts at 50 miles.
Ends at the dome.
Then its called the heavens.

Watch these 7 rockets hit the dome. It gets real good at number 5.
US military tried to blow the dome in the 50's with project Fish Bowl. The highest bomb they set off had some interesting visual effects.

This better not be the yoyo despin.
Ugh, it is.

See this is what gives flat earth a bad rap. It's not just believing something that's obviously not true, it's making claims like that video.

I didn't finish watching the video, but I watched enough to see the yoyo-de-spin and I know where this is going.

Those rockets didn't hit the dome.

They have a mechanism, called a "yoyo de spin" mechanism which slows the spin so they can deploy their payload without sending it flying out of control.

For the astute, that is why the rocket stopped spinning but didn't go careening out of control or breaking into a million pieces - which is what would have happened if it'd hit anything at mach 6.

You can google all of this, there are videos explaining all that.

[stack]

People have been into space. How have they not discovered that the earth is flat

They have. NASA gets in 2019 $19.5 billion. It pays to shut up.
Space starts at 50 miles.
Ends at the dome.
Then its called the heavens.

Watch these 7 rockets hit the dome. It gets real good at number 5.
US military tried to blow the dome in the 50's with project Fish Bowl. The highest bomb they set off had some interesting visual effects.

As TomFoolery explained it's called YoYo De-Spin. As well, logic would dictate that if a rocket hit the "dome" it would have been smashed to smithereens. Why that is lost on you is unfathomable.

Here's the explainer video, the rocket looks pretty good for slamming into a dome at full speed.