[mattbrown]

in 1998 (same year as ISS launch BTW), they talk about the Pathfinder Plus solar plane that tested and reached an elevation of 80,000 feet.

later the Centurion/Helios prototype hit 100,000 feet.   check out the photos.  MANY similarities to the ISS images you see. 

Oh wait there is more!  the ERAST project which says 100,000 feet elevations and would be able to fly continously for weeks or MONTHs at a time with the assistance of a fuel cell.  Wow.  kind of what i have been saying.  crazy.  and all this straight from NASA.

now do you think there is a small chance that NASA doesnt disclose all there technology and what they really have is far more advanced?  thats not some wacky conspiracy theory....that would be a classified government program, like all these other ones we found out about well after the fact.

Way to go make my point for me.  You've found the best of the best when it comes to solar powered craft, armed with a dismal airspeed of around 20mph and inability to sustain flight for extended periods (though the altitude numbers are impressive).  Absolutely incapable of following the predictable flight path of the ISS.

[Round Eyes]

in 1998 (same year as ISS launch BTW), they talk about the Pathfinder Plus solar plane that tested and reached an elevation of 80,000 feet.

later the Centurion/Helios prototype hit 100,000 feet.   check out the photos.  MANY similarities to the ISS images you see. 

Oh wait there is more!  the ERAST project which says 100,000 feet elevations and would be able to fly continously for weeks or MONTHs at a time with the assistance of a fuel cell.  Wow.  kind of what i have been saying.  crazy.  and all this straight from NASA.

now do you think there is a small chance that NASA doesnt disclose all there technology and what they really have is far more advanced?  thats not some wacky conspiracy theory....that would be a classified government program, like all these other ones we found out about well after the fact.

Way to go make my point for me.  You've found the best of the best when it comes to solar powered craft, armed with a dismal airspeed of around 20mph and inability to sustain flight for extended periods (though the altitude numbers are impressive).  Absolutely incapable of following the predictable flight path of the ISS.

referring to the published info from over 20 years ago?  no technological advancement in that time , well outside of the limits of reason?  you asked for example and i provided solid information, and from nasa at that.

how about the mount on that 16" dob?  which one are you using again?  you havent responded on that. 

Or would you like to disclose that you did not in fact track the ISS with a 16" dobsonian?  its hard enough to hold on a planet that appears motionless in the sky by naked eye without it going out of the eyepiece's view for more than 15 seconds or so, but you are able to maneuver a very large telescope and keep it on a object travelling across the sky at that rate of angular speed.

[Round Eyes]

here is another one, straight from airbus...they even call the plane a damn satellite!  the Zephyr, capable of flying for months at a time:  https://www.airbus.com/defence/uav/zephyr.html

first line on the website:  "Zephyr is a High Altitude Pseudo-Satellite (HAPS) that fills a capability gap between satellites and UAVs"  LOL.

this plane flys in the stratosphere, yeah.  Above the weather (their words).

from that website, geez, sounds like a satelitte to me:

Uniquely designed for both military and commercial purposes, Zephyr can deliver numerous payload capabilities across two platforms.  Zephyr S with its ability to carry payloads, offering voice, data communications both line of sight and beyond the line of sight, and line of sight high resolution optical imagery.   Zephyr T carrying larger payloads offers the ability to bring more active payloads to the fore; for example, widespread, persistent internet coverage to remote areas of the globe, and active RADAR.  Together they enable real-time mapping, internet and a number of surveillance opportunities to meet a broad range of requirements.

[mattbrown]

how about the mount on that 16" dob?  which one are you using again?  you havent responded on that. 

Or would you like to disclose that you did not in fact track the ISS with a 16" dobsonian?  its hard enough to hold on a planet that appears motionless in the sky by naked eye without it going out of the eyepiece's view for more than 15 seconds or so, but you are able to maneuver a very large telescope and keep it on a object travelling across the sky at that rate of angular speed.

Calm down Round Eyes.  I haven't responded for a very good reason,  you are mixing me up with someone else in this thread. Go talk to panicp from Thread reply 31.

[Round Eyes]

how about the mount on that 16" dob?  which one are you using again?  you havent responded on that. 

Or would you like to disclose that you did not in fact track the ISS with a 16" dobsonian?  its hard enough to hold on a planet that appears motionless in the sky by naked eye without it going out of the eyepiece's view for more than 15 seconds or so, but you are able to maneuver a very large telescope and keep it on a object travelling across the sky at that rate of angular speed.

Calm down Round Eyes.  I haven't responded for a very good reason,  you are mixing me up with someone else in this thread. Go talk to panicp from Thread reply 31.

My bad.  But on a positive note, you're finally correct

Thoughts on my follow up posts though??

[inquisitive]

how about the mount on that 16" dob?  which one are you using again?  you havent responded on that. 

Or would you like to disclose that you did not in fact track the ISS with a 16" dobsonian?  its hard enough to hold on a planet that appears motionless in the sky by naked eye without it going out of the eyepiece's view for more than 15 seconds or so, but you are able to maneuver a very large telescope and keep it on a object travelling across the sky at that rate of angular speed.

Calm down Round Eyes.  I haven't responded for a very good reason,  you are mixing me up with someone else in this thread. Go talk to panicp from Thread reply 31.

Planes at 20,200km high?

My bad.  But on a positive note, you're finally correct

Thoughts on my follow up posts though??

[Round Eyes]

how about the mount on that 16" dob?  which one are you using again?  you havent responded on that. 

Or would you like to disclose that you did not in fact track the ISS with a 16" dobsonian?  its hard enough to hold on a planet that appears motionless in the sky by naked eye without it going out of the eyepiece's view for more than 15 seconds or so, but you are able to maneuver a very large telescope and keep it on a object travelling across the sky at that rate of angular speed.

Calm down Round Eyes.  I haven't responded for a very good reason,  you are mixing me up with someone else in this thread. Go talk to panicp from Thread reply 31.

Planes at 20,200km high?

My bad.  But on a positive note, you're finally correct

Thoughts on my follow up posts though??

20,200 km high?  no.  obviously not.  very apparent from my argument that i do not believe the height/elevations that are noted for satellites are correct.  but i think you already know that.

and before you say you can verify the height based on geometry by observing the angle from two locations and then calculating the height....my question would be...have you?

with all you round earthers on this forum, you would think a few of you would team up for a fun exercise to do this...but nothing.

[Tumeni]

These chaps verify the height of various orbital satellites by bouncing lasers off them. Do you have any reason to disbelieve them?

http://sgf.rgo.ac.uk/

They might not be doing this for the GPS satellites, possibly, but they've accumulated a shedload of data on others.



"with all you round earthers on this forum, you would think a few of you would team up for a fun exercise to do this...but nothing."

And do ... what?

[inquisitive]

how about the mount on that 16" dob?  which one are you using again?  you havent responded on that. 

Or would you like to disclose that you did not in fact track the ISS with a 16" dobsonian?  its hard enough to hold on a planet that appears motionless in the sky by naked eye without it going out of the eyepiece's view for more than 15 seconds or so, but you are able to maneuver a very large telescope and keep it on a object travelling across the sky at that rate of angular speed.

Calm down Round Eyes.  I haven't responded for a very good reason,  you are mixing me up with someone else in this thread. Go talk to panicp from Thread reply 31.

Planes at 20,200km high?

My bad.  But on a positive note, you're finally correct

Thoughts on my follow up posts though??

20,200 km high?  no.  obviously not.  very apparent from my argument that i do not believe the height/elevations that are noted for satellites are correct.  but i think you already know that.

and before you say you can verify the height based on geometry by observing the angle from two locations and then calculating the height....my question would be...have you?

with all you round earthers on this forum, you would think a few of you would team up for a fun exercise to do this...but nothing.

That is your opinion. Anyone agree with you?

[mattbrown]

Thoughts on my follow up posts though??

Round Eyes, I'll give you one on the Zephyr.  I did not know anything like that existed, you demonstrated otherwise.  I'll still say its a big leap to say that the ISS is some sort of solar powered Zephyr-esk craft.  But I'll concede that there does exist a solar powered craft that appears to be able to sustain flight for extended periods of time.

Matt

[TomInAustin]

why convince the wider public that satellites are needed to make it function?  Why not simply describe this technology as is?

The most likely reason, to me, is that they'd have to go back on a past lie. Most space conspiracy theories revolve around the idea that space travel has been fabricated to trick the other side of the Iron Curtain that they're totally about to get blasted with an orbital space laser straight out of Star Wars. It would likely not be healthy for the organisations who already told that lie to suddenly go back on it. The aftermath of past exposed conspiracies has never been pretty, and I see no reason to believe that it would be any different in this case.

NASA's current approach, for example, is to fade into obscurity. With their funding systematically dropping and their activities becoming less and less public (and, indeed, less and less existent), they might soon have no need to fix their past mistakes. They'll be somebody else's problem.

Very well thought out response.  I'm curious to know what you think about satellites that you can locate and are exactly where they are supposed to be, moving where they are supposed to move? 

Starwalk for iPad is a killer app that allows you to locate any satellite that is publicly listed.


https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/star-walk-explore-the-sky/id295430577?mt=8

[TomInAustin]

Thoughts on my follow up posts though??

Round Eyes, I'll give you one on the Zephyr.  I did not know anything like that existed, you demonstrated otherwise.  I'll still say its a big leap to say that the ISS is some sort of solar powered Zephyr-esk craft.  But I'll concede that there does exist a solar powered craft that appears to be able to sustain flight for extended periods of time.

Matt

High flying planes to bounce a signal off of is very interesting.  "This unmanned aircraft provides local satellite-like services". Local service sure.  But a solar-powered aircraft at the speeds needed to simulate a GPS (or any other LEO) satellite is ridiculous at best.  You can go outside and see satellites moving across the sky.

[Rushy]

Thoughts on my follow up posts though??

Round Eyes, I'll give you one on the Zephyr.  I did not know anything like that existed, you demonstrated otherwise.  I'll still say its a big leap to say that the ISS is some sort of solar powered Zephyr-esk craft.  But I'll concede that there does exist a solar powered craft that appears to be able to sustain flight for extended periods of time.

Matt

High flying planes to bounce a signal off of is very interesting.  "This unmanned aircraft provides local satellite-like services". Local service sure.  But a solar-powered aircraft at the speeds needed to simulate a GPS (or any other LEO) satellite is ridiculous at best.  You can go outside and see satellites moving across the sky.

A GPS satellite has to be geosynchronous to function properly (its location in the sky does not change). You would never see one moving across the night sky, as not only would this require your eyes to be telescopes, it would also mean you're looking at something that's not a GPS satellite in the first place.

GPS satellites are more than likely to be stationary objects, like stratospheric blimps. NASA and other organizations devoted a lot of time and money to the creation and deployment of those structures.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-altitude_platform_station

[inquisitive]

Thoughts on my follow up posts though??

Round Eyes, I'll give you one on the Zephyr.  I did not know anything like that existed, you demonstrated otherwise.  I'll still say its a big leap to say that the ISS is some sort of solar powered Zephyr-esk craft.  But I'll concede that there does exist a solar powered craft that appears to be able to sustain flight for extended periods of time.

Matt

High flying planes to bounce a signal off of is very interesting.  "This unmanned aircraft provides local satellite-like services". Local service sure.  But a solar-powered aircraft at the speeds needed to simulate a GPS (or any other LEO) satellite is ridiculous at best.  You can go outside and see satellites moving across the sky.

A GPS satellite has to be geosynchronous to function properly (its location in the sky does not change). You would never see one moving across the night sky, as not only would this require your eyes to be telescopes, it would also mean you're looking at something that's not a GPS satellite in the first place.

GPS satellites are more than likely to be stationary objects, like stratospheric blimps. NASA and other organizations devoted a lot of time and money to the creation and deployment of those structures.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-altitude_platform_station

GPS satellites have to orbit to give full coverage, see the documentation.  Receivers show they orbit.

[TomInAustin]

Thoughts on my follow up posts though??

Round Eyes, I'll give you one on the Zephyr.  I did not know anything like that existed, you demonstrated otherwise.  I'll still say its a big leap to say that the ISS is some sort of solar powered Zephyr-esk craft.  But I'll concede that there does exist a solar powered craft that appears to be able to sustain flight for extended periods of time.

Matt

High flying planes to bounce a signal off of is very interesting.  "This unmanned aircraft provides local satellite-like services". Local service sure.  But a solar-powered aircraft at the speeds needed to simulate a GPS (or any other LEO) satellite is ridiculous at best.  You can go outside and see satellites moving across the sky.

A GPS satellite has to be geosynchronous to function properly (its location in the sky does not change). You would never see one moving across the night sky, as not only would this require your eyes to be telescopes, it would also mean you're looking at something that's not a GPS satellite in the first place.

GPS satellites are more than likely to be stationary objects, like stratospheric blimps. NASA and other organizations devoted a lot of time and money to the creation and deployment of those structures.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-altitude_platform_station

GPS satellites are not geosynchronous.  Try again

[Rushy]

GPS satellites have to orbit to give full coverage, see the documentation.  Receivers show they orbit.

A GPS satellite has to be geosynchronous to function properly (its location in the sky does not change). You would never see one moving across the night sky, as not only would this require your eyes to be telescopes, it would also mean you're looking at something that's not a GPS satellite in the first place.

GPS satellites are more than likely to be stationary objects, like stratospheric blimps. NASA and other organizations devoted a lot of time and money to the creation and deployment of those structures.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-altitude_platform_station

GPS satellites are not geosynchronous.  Try again

They also don't exist. Hence why I said "function properly" and not "this is what they do."

[Bobby Shafto]

A GPS satellite has to be geosynchronous to function properly (its location in the sky does not change).

A constellation of geosynchronous navigation/positional satellites would not provide global coverage.

GPS (and Russia's GLONASS, China's BeiDou-2, and eventually the EU's Galileo systems) puts satellites in non-synchronous medium earth orbit, lower than geosynchronous and at various inclinations. Geosynchronous orbit can only be achieved over the equator which incurs limitations. For a global positioning system to "function properly" the satellites can't all be in geosynchronous orbit.

They also don't exist. Hence why I said "function properly" and not "this is what they do."

But even if they were not to exist, geosynchronous is not where they'd have to be to function properly. That's incorrect.

[TomInAustin]

GPS satellites have to orbit to give full coverage, see the documentation.  Receivers show they orbit.

A GPS satellite has to be geosynchronous to function properly (its location in the sky does not change). You would never see one moving across the night sky, as not only would this require your eyes to be telescopes, it would also mean you're looking at something that's not a GPS satellite in the first place.

GPS satellites are more than likely to be stationary objects, like stratospheric blimps. NASA and other organizations devoted a lot of time and money to the creation and deployment of those structures.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-altitude_platform_station

GPS satellites are not geosynchronous.  Try again

They also don't exist. Hence why I said "function properly" and not "this is what they do."

So if I use an app like star walk to point me to a GPS satellite and I see it moving across the sky in the same path the app shows.... what am I seeing?

[Rushy]

A constellation of geosynchronous navigation/positional satellites would not provide global coverage.

Would you care to explain why?

GPS (and Russia's GLONASS, China's BeiDou-2, and eventually the EU's Galileo systems) puts satellites in non-synchronous medium earth orbit, lower than geosynchronous and at various inclinations. Geosynchronous orbit can only be achieved over the equator which incurs limitations. For a global positioning system to "function properly" the satellites can't all be in geosynchronous orbit.

This is incorrect, and just a misunderstanding of what GPS is. You should use NASA's reasoning, that geosynchronous orbits would be too expensive, not the reasoning you made up just now. I understand all of your GPS knowledge came from a Wikipedia article, so it makes since that you're confused on the actual functions of it.

So if I use an app like star walk to point me to a GPS satellite and I see it moving across the sky in the same path the app shows.... what am I seeing?

Likely some form of aircraft.

[Bobby Shafto]

Would you care to explain why?

Loss of coverage at the higher latitudes, for one.

This is incorrect, and just a misunderstanding of what GPS is. You should use NASA's reasoning, that geosynchronous orbits would be too expensive, not the reasoning you made up just now. I understand all of your GPS knowledge came from a Wikipedia article, so it makes since that you're confused on the actual functions of it.

I am correct. You are incorrect to presume my knowledge comes from Wikipedia. Don't be defensive. Your statement "A GPS satellite has to be geosynchronous to function properly" is flat out wrong. You cannot get global coverage if all of your satellites are in geosynchronous orbit. Can't work.