Originally posted by moonbus And those planes did not run out of fuel on the way, did they? SA & Australia would have to be thousands of miles farther apart if the Antarctic were really the circumference of a flat disc.
The only discussions I have had with someone claiming to be a flat earther (Freaky) demonstrated very quickly that he was geographically challenged (and logically challenged) so any discussion from a point of geography or logic was doomed.
Originally posted by moonbus Let them have their harmless delusion. Goodness knows, there are more dangerous wackos out there than flat-Earthers.
What annoys me is not flat earthers, there really aren't very many of them, nor people who believe in UFOs and aliens and stuff, but the fact that news organisations love to write stories on them because it gives them click bait headlines. The modern media, and especially the internet encourages falsehoods and 'fake news' because it encourages things that people are sceptical about because that is what people tend to click on.
Take this for example:
http://www.inquisitr.com/3863172/giant-staircase-in-antarctica-could-be-alien-ufo-landing-site-conspiracy-theorists-claim-photo/
total utter nonsense, but people make money passing on the story, so they do.
Aiming of antennae is done during setup and knowledge of the terrain. Now I imagine a setup like that would aim antennae using GPS so they would just aim them at each other. I don't know if Troposcatter and space diversity is still used anywhere any more. They probably have some for emergency backup though. Troposcatter means the microwave signals are spread out and don't remain a beam when the energy hits the troposphere.
Originally posted by moonbus Similarly, two lasers attached to plumb bobs would point straight up. Place them in a valley far enough apart, then climb a mountain at night and see whether the beams are parallel--if so, the Earth is flat, if they diverge, the Earth is curved.
EDIT: that the Earth is curved follows from the fact that sunlight shines vertically down a well, or casts a sh ...[text shortened]... nes
Originally posted by moonbus And those planes did not run out of fuel on the way, did they? SA & Australia would have to be thousands of miles farther apart if the Antarctic were really the circumference of a flat disc.
Let them have their harmless delusion. Goodness knows, there are more dangerous wackos out there than flat-Earthers.
I don't know about that. If one can get someone to believe in a flat earth then they'll believe pretty much anything and that strikes me as the most dangerous thing there is.
Originally posted by DeepThought I don't know about that. If one can get someone to believe in a flat earth then they'll believe pretty much anything and that strikes me as the most dangerous thing there is.
You mean like letting them vote for presidential candidates?
Originally posted by moonbus You mean like letting them vote for presidential candidates?
So I thought of a variation of your laser scheme: Fire lasers straight up with geometric precision and two such devices some distance apart. Then you have the laser pulsing with a special digital code that can tell how far the laser beams have traveled. Next piece of the puzzle, two balloons say 50,000 feet or 20,000 meters or so up each with a mirror that can reflect both beams to make a path from one laser to the next laser and measure the distance. Do that for both lasers, if earth is flat there will be one reading, if curved the distance traveled by said laser beams will be greater and that should tell the curvature immediately, hopefully stop the sniveling flatasssers.
BTW, the code is not just made up, it was part of my job at Goddard Space Flight Center when I worked on Apollo, tracking and timing. Tracking did just that, send out a specially crafted digital signal which went to Apollo in space and a transponder send back that signal and comparing the two digital signals, there was only one distance that could be correct so they knew the distance from Earth to Apollo at all times. The timing part was using atomic clocks to syncronize data paths switching from one deep space network dish to another which had to happen in 100 nanoseconds or better.
Originally posted by sonhouse ..... hopefully stop the sniveling flatasssers.
No actually, it wouldn't. Not only are there too many possible sources of error that can be questioned, but flat earthers wouldn't understand it in the first place, and in the second place can easily claim you faked the data.
Seriously now, if you claim that all satellite imagery is fake, then you can claim just about anything is fake.
Originally posted by twhitehead No actually, it wouldn't. Not only are there too many possible sources of error that can be questioned, but flat earthers wouldn't understand it in the first place, and in the second place can easily claim you faked the data.
Seriously now, if you claim that all satellite imagery is fake, then you can claim just about anything is fake.
Yes, that is sadly true. They could be taken in a spacecraft voyage around Antarctica and it would still be faked. And that would be because it is their religion.
Originally posted by sonhouse Yes, that is sadly true. They could be taken in a spacecraft voyage around Antarctica and it would still be faked. And that would be because it is their religion.
Did you see the latest footage of a SpaceX first stage landing?
Originally posted by sonhouse Saw earlier ones, they nailed it this time though. I wonder how many times a rocket like that can be reused?
The target is over 100 times. In reality, the greatest savings comes from the first resuse so only a single reuse per rocket will be highly significant. Just two or three reuses per rocket could potentially cut the cost of launches in half - either making spaceX a ton of money, or allowing them to cut prices and gain more customers, or both. Given that they are already the cheapest out there, the future is theirs. Reuse would also allow them to launch more often as they are probably currently limited by their ability to turn out rockets.
Originally posted by twhitehead The target is over 100 times. In reality, the greatest savings comes from the first resuse so only a single reuse per rocket will be highly significant. Just two or three reuses per rocket could potentially cut the cost of launches in half - either making spaceX a ton of money, or allowing them to cut prices and gain more customers, or both. Given that th ...[text shortened]... o launch more often as they are probably currently limited by their ability to turn out rockets.
I wonder what the average success to rocket launch failures are average for the industry?
The Suyuz is a pretty successful system but they still blow up, for instance.
08 Jan '17 13:301 edit
Idea to test curvature of Earth:
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