General Question Does Earth spin & Orbiter simulate atmospheric flight?

C3PO

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:hmm: I think we all jumped on him being a flat-earther a bit too soon. The agenda is there, yes, but it is perhaps a bit unfair to flat out assume that he is one (no pun intended). It could well be that he wants to convince others that their theory is false with the help of Orbiter.

Unfortunately, that would be naive, too. How does that old saying go? "Never argue with stupid people. They'll drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience."

My first thought was that he was trying to debunk flat-earthers. I didn't consider that anyone would be so detached from reality that they would try to make a bunch of space-simmers help prove the Earth is flat.

I still have no first hand evidence of his intentions, and IMHO it doesn't matter. The answers would be identical in any case.

As for old sayings I personally like: "Never interrupt your opponent while he's demonstrating the flaws in his own arguments".
 

Messierhunter

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I'm having some trouble believing that there are people who actually believe the Earth is flat. I thought that was like a big internet joke or something. You mean these people are for real?! I mean, there are always a handful of crackpots who believe any given nonsense, but this flat earth thing is bigger than that?

Any time I capture and post a video of a Falcon 9 landing, I'm immediately attacked by flat earthers on youtube. Hordes of them, in some cases. One even went so far as to make a "response video" to one of my landing videos, calling it an "obvious fake." On my latest Falcon 9 landing video, one crazy loon said she had reported my video to YouTube to try to get it taken down as a "false report." I'm not sure how a rocket vertically landing directly contradicts the claim of a flat earth on its own, but nevertheless they seem to be automatically threatened by anything that demonstrates a high level of technological advancement in spaceflight simply because they insist that "all rocket launches from Florida secretly splash in the Atlantic ocean after launch."

Keep in mind that I'm not posting my launch and landing videos as a response to anyone, I'm just doing it to share the event. This is just what these people feel compelled to do on their own. Anything that contradicts their beliefs must be discredited or censored in order to minimize their cognitive dissonance. These people are a special kind of radical that you don't typically see in most religions; their beliefs are so incredibly wrong that a large amount of evidence contradicting them can be generated by the average person without an extraordinary amount of effort. In fact, evidence is frequently generated without even deliberately trying. This requires them to attack and besmirch anyone who generated that evidence, whether deliberately to debunk them or not.

I met a couple from out of town at one of the latest Falcon 9 launches and they left a nice comment on the video that I uploaded of the launch/landing, but were actually attacked by flat earthers who insisted they were fake posters that I had set up to make it seem as if additional people witnessed the event in person. Thanks to the wonders of Google's broken YouTube comment system, although I can remove the comments from public view on YouTube, I cannot remove them from the "Google+ enhanced" comment threads that are automatically generated, so the couple still saw the nastiness no matter what I did. They probably weren't expecting to be attacked by flat earthers simply for commenting on my video, and I haven't heard back from them since.

It's unfortunate, but I'm now embarrassed any time I tell anyone at a launch about my YouTube channel. They see my telescope tracking setup and the video that I'm capturing and they want to know if I'm posting it online so that they can watch it later when they get home, but I now feel compelled to warn them that they should ignore the comments in the video. I've been told I should just disable comments altogether, but that feels like an admission that I'm defeated or hiding something. It's the same move I see hoaxers pull when they're exposed on YouTube, so I refuse to do it. Flat earthers are a huge headache and Google's broken comment system on YouTube makes it impossible to properly manage them.
 
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Face

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Well, "youtube comments" is already a synonym for "troll forum" in my eyes, so I'm not surprised. If anything, the amount of trolls you get there is a better guess at the popularity of your videos than the hit counter alone.

If I look at youtube videos, I completely ignore the comments, so IMHO you don't admit defeat by closing comments. Everybody reading them should know that 99% is crap, anyway.

And to be honest: whether or not fundamentalistic terrorists of the flat-earth religion think you are hiding something should really be the least of your concerns. Those :censored:s will ALWAYS find something to hate on, no matter what you do.
 

Col_Klonk

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Here's a south/north approach at Brighton Beach on the moon, with no atmosphere to carry you along..
As you can see the approach angle is offset until the last moment when straightening up for landing, where the drift (relative moon/craft speed), as mentioned, is clearly visible.

 

Andy44

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Well, "youtube comments" is already a synonym for "troll forum" in my eyes, so I'm not surprised. If anything, the amount of trolls you get there is a better guess at the popularity of your videos than the hit counter alone.

If I look at youtube videos, I completely ignore the comments, so IMHO you don't admit defeat by closing comments. Everybody reading them should know that 99% is crap, anyway.

And to be honest: whether or not fundamentalistic terrorists of the flat-earth religion think you are hiding something should really be the least of your concerns. Those :censored:s will ALWAYS find something to hate on, no matter what you do.

I rarely see a concerted flat earth troll campaign of the type Messierhunter describes. That sounds like something different.

I do notice it in news comments like on Yahoo news and the like; every space related article immediately draws religious nuts, anti-science types, and conspiracy theorists like flies to a garbage can.
 

Loru

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O-F Staff note.

Please discuss conspipracy theorists / religion / politics in the basement.

Thank you.
 

Aeadar

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All of this reminds me of an ex co-worker; decent enough young man, early twenties, above average intelligence (admittedly, it feels as though that average is dropping at about one IQ point per year, but anyway...), better at basic math than I am...or at least quicker than I am, who is so mired in the culture of distrust for 'anything we've been taught', that during one of those rambling lunchtime discussions that can seem to touch on any subject, comes out with --- "Yeah, I know they say that 60 mph is a mile a minute, and, thinking about it that seems right...but that can't be right, it just can't...it's too convenient."

To me, this is the truly frightening thing. To be made to distrust ones own mind, ones own logic.

Seriously, if you can't trust your brain telling you that 60 mph is equal to 1 mile per minute, then how can you trust your brain telling you that 1+1=2 ?

edit: Sorry Loru. I posted and then saw your post. Please move my post to the basement if needed.
 
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n72.75

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I'm having some trouble believing that there are people who actually believe the Earth is flat. I thought that was like a big internet joke or something. You mean these people are for real?! I mean, there are always a handful of crackpots who believe any given nonsense, but this flat earth thing is bigger than that?

Two things are infinite...

and regarding the North-south runway thing that's more of a relative velocity thing than a sphere-disk thing, and in a simulation, it's more of a "programmer forgot the negative sign", or a "not enough floating points" thing.

I suggest reading the Technotes on state propagation.
 
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Notebook

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Its bad enough 60 mph is 1 mile per minute, but the thought its 88 feet per second is scary. Far too fast, that's two lorry lengths, doesn't feel right.

N.
 

jroly

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I think the OP should start playing with orbiter, if he/she sticks with it for a few months learning and having a lot of fun, they will realise the Earth is not flat and the Moon landings did happen. Someone who is a moon hoaxer, if they learn NASSP or even ASMO and do a few missions will see how the moon landings were real and possible. The latest versions of NASSP use the AGC emulator fully which uses the original code from the 60's in Orbiter. If they were going to fake the Moon landings, why would they have created the most advanced computer and software of the time just to fake it?
 

Thorsten

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I think the OP should start playing with orbiter, if he/she sticks with it for a few months learning and having a lot of fun, they will realise the Earth is not flat and the Moon landings did happen.

Ah... by way of continuing this argument, if I give you a very visually appealing simulation of Discworld in which you go over the rim, dive underneath and see four elephants and the turtle, you'll come after a few month of learning an having fun to the realization that Earth is flat and carried by Great A'Tuin?

Sorry, but the idea that you can learn from a simulation how reality is like is intrinsically flawed.

(I did work out over breakfast conversation with my 8-year old daughter three easy ways how she can herself verify from her own experience that Earth is curved - it's not rocket science).
 

jedidia

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if I give you a very visually appealing simulation of Discworld

Yes! Yes, pleaaaaaase give! :lol:

Its bad enough 60 mph is 1 mile per minute, but the thought its 88 feet per second is scary. Far too fast, that's two lorry lengths, doesn't feel right.

It's rare to see three entirely different units of length mentioned in only two sentences. Unfortunately, exactly zero of the mentioned units actually work for me! :lol:
 
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Notebook

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Don't your national speed limits factor down to some nice integer m/s?...

N.
 

paddy

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exactly zero of the mentioned units actually work for me
I love a pint of beer but 568ml of beer is all wrong !!!!
but still makes more sense than a flat earth
 

Notebook

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Its awful, 568 isn't even a prime number!

N.
 

paddy

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568 isn't even the prime number
Of course not silly, it is the second number I think of, one pint is the prime.
 

Notebook

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Any way, this isn't helping the OP, not sure I understood the question mind.

N.
 

jedidia

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Don't your national speed limits factor down to some nice integer m/s?...

No, because Napoleon unfortunately didn't succeed in establishing a base-10 system for time measurement... :p
 

Notebook

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Shocking, can't you just round up?

N.
 

boogabooga

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It's rare to see three entirely different units of length mentioned in only two sentences. Unfortunately, exactly zero of the mentioned units actually work for me! :lol:

[ame="https://youtu.be/JQnwx10DT9o?t=15"]Abe Simpson Metric System - YouTube[/ame]
 
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