Satellites : general discussion and musings

If NASA faked the moon landings, does the agency have any credibility at all? Was the Space Shuttle program also a hoax? Is the International Space Station another one? Do not dismiss these hypotheses offhand. Check out our wider NASA research and make up your own mind about it all.
Unleashed
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Re: Satellites : general discussion and musings

Unread post by Unleashed »

Hey Jonathan!

At least you didn't come back with a quote by the oft-mentioned Bill Hicks. "...well, looks like we got ourselves a reader!". HA!
I didn't elaborate on my log-in handle, but, "Unleashed" is tongue firmly tucked in cheek. I know a little bit about a lot of things, just enough to be dangerous. :D

My Occam's Razor answer was air freight flight paths. They are, as you can imagine, well away from normal passenger routes. But, regular as clockwork.

Do these objects you see in the sky seem to range at 32,000 ft., or 32,000 miles?

Btw, I have an XM Radio. The receiver points upward one inch above my porch railing.
Jonathan
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Re: Satellites : general discussion and musings

Unread post by Jonathan »

Unleashed wrote:Hey Jonathan!

At least you didn't come back with a quote by the oft-mentioned Bill Hicks. "...well, looks like we got ourselves a reader!". HA!
I didn't elaborate on my log-in handle, but, "Unleashed" is tongue firmly tucked in cheek. I know a little bit about a lot of things, just enough to be dangerous. :D

My Occam's Razor answer was air freight flight paths. They are, as you can imagine, well away from normal passenger routes. But, regular as clockwork.

Do these objects you see in the sky seem to range at 32,000 ft., or 32,000 miles?

Btw, I have an XM Radio. The receiver points upward one inch above my porch railing.
Just before I read your post I found out that "sanguine" has yet other meanings - and you confirmed ;)
I don't care whether I'm read or have a reader - but I got interested in the reasoning behind the angle of view on things which seem so different from mine.

The "air freight flight paths" do not ring any bell with me.
It's your answer, not mine.
To me, it would still be planes - which are seen because of their positioning and - if on approach - landing lights.
Which look and behave different from what is referred to as satellites - to me, that is.
I live near an airport and see planes all the time - and satellites too :)

The XM Radio you mentioned: I did not know such thing existed - there really is a market for "pay per listen" just like pay per view or a (satellite) TV subscription? Appearantly ;)
I just looked up how it works - a couple of satellites in geosync orbit - each of them not having a fixed position but any one of them always at about the same inclination.
Geosync is much more near to earth and would not be as difficult to receive as TV from geostationary orbit - not requiring a perfectly pointed dish.
But: I don't know what the antenna looks like and whether it is highly directional.

32,000 ft., or 32,000 miles?
A plane - air freight or passenger - at 32.000 ft (about 10 km) viewable as that fast, steady and appearing and disappearing as suddenly as observable ... is not credible to me.
A satellite: we see the sunlight reflected.
It often appears suddenly very high up and is only visible a few seconds on its path.
Consistent with: what we see is a reflection of sunlight - if the angle does not match anymore it just disappears to us.

...to me, that is.
Unleashed
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Re: Satellites : general discussion and musings

Unread post by Unleashed »

I've seen the sunlight glint off airliners, too.

I'm more interested in your super human eyesight, though.
Say the world was flat and nothing impeded your vision, no curvature. Do you think you could behold a school bus in New York City from Capetown, South Africa, with the sunshine glancing off the bumper? That, by the way, is nowhere close to being 32,000 miles apart.

Oh, about the XM. Yes, it is purported via a 64,000 mile round trip radio signal.
But, of course, in my theory, I am merely rented the "box", that allows me to distinguish a range of 250 channels digitally moderated vs. the analog. The secret is what's in the box, not what's in the air.
nonhocapito
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Re: Satellites : general discussion and musings

Unread post by nonhocapito »

Unleashed wrote:I've seen the sunlight glint off airliners, too.

I'm more interested in your super human eyesight, though.
Say the world was flat and nothing impeded your vision, no curvature. Do you think you could behold a school bus in New York City from Capetown, South Africa, with the sunshine glancing off the bumper? That, by the way, is nowhere close to being 32,000 miles apart.
We already had this discussion once or twice on this forum, Unleashed. I don't remember if you took part in it, but I remember the same objections (I think it was in the hubble thread... infact here's a post of mine on the same subject: http://cluesforum.info/viewtopic.php?p=2354851#p2354851).

Everyone can see satellites going about at night. They are NOT airplanes. Their light is steady as that of a planet, and they move across the sky quite rapidly. Please go out at night and look for them, you are bound to see one in a matter of minutes, and many more after that.

The light they emit is the one of the sun being reflected (hence the apparent steadiness of it). So, to have at night the sun light being reflected, it goes without saying that they are so far up to be well above our horizon, at an altitude where the sun light bounces off of them. Since this happen in the dead of the night as well, it means way far up.
If the next argument is once again going to be that if those are satellites, then we see too few of them, just think of the many that must go about at night, that at a given angle that do not reflect sunlight. etc etc.

OK, all the above could be wrong, it is just what I assumed was true so far. You didn't make me change my mind, though. :)

Even though a lot is probably covered up about what satellites are up there for, there are answers provided to many scientific and technical questions we can't figure. It would be better to take the science vulgate and see what blatant contradictions can be found there. Just as a general guideline or starting point, consider pages like this: http://science.howstuffworks.com/satellite7.htm
Jonathan
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Re: Satellites : general discussion and musings

Unread post by Jonathan »

Unleashed wrote:I've seen the sunlight glint off airliners, too.
Me too - but only very short, like a flash.

Way after midnight too - when the sun would be far beyond the horizon?
Too far beyond to illuminate an airplane at 32.000 ft and reflect back to an observer - it is past sunset for them, too.

Not too far beyond to reflect off of a much higher object.

Also a reason for appearing and disappearing suddenly instead of being visible from horizon to horizon.
I'm more interested in your super human eyesight, though.
Say the world was flat and nothing impeded your vision, no curvature. Do you think you could behold a school bus in New York City from Capetown, South Africa, with the sunshine glancing off the bumper? That, by the way, is nowhere close to being 32,000 miles apart.
If it was flat - and If the air would allow to see through such a distance unimpeded?
Probably not.
Super human eyesight would be needed indeed.
The area (the very small shiny bumper) would be too small to be visible I guess.

Light reflected from a much larger flat surface than a bumper (solar panels for instance) and travelling through only the with hight ever thinner air straight line up [edit: ...down, I meant really...]?
I have no problem with that.

Cheers!

[edit:] the post I answered changed slightly after my answer to the original...
Last edited by Jonathan on Mon Sep 05, 2011 11:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Jonathan
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Re: Satellites : general discussion and musings

Unread post by Jonathan »

Unleashed wrote:The secret is what's in the box, not what's in the air.
I'd really like you to elaborate on that because I'm curious.

(I'll be away for a couple of days starting tomorrow, probably...)

[edit]: "probably" did'nt work out - so: I'm here, reading...
and I'm not just curious - I literally don't have a clue what you refer to with that - but would like to
SmokingGunII
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Re: Satellites : general discussion and musings

Unread post by SmokingGunII »

The shit continues.......they have "twins" in space now.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14825641

;)
Jonathan
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Re: Satellites : general discussion and musings

Unread post by Jonathan »

Not having read all of that article:
This will help explain many mysteries, such as why the farside of the Moon looks so different from that of the nearside with its great swathe of dark volcanic plains, or maria.
I thought:
Maybe it looks different because some early guys depicted it that way and called it photographs?
And now they have a mystery to solve?

OTOH: this side of the moon NEVER faces the earth, ever.
Which is a nice, but observable by everyone, coincidence.
(though I firmly believe, FWIW, that there are no coincidences...)

Who knows why it may look like it appearantly does?
Unleashed
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Re: Satellites : general discussion and musings

Unread post by Unleashed »

Gee, it's almost like NASA reads Cluesforum.

Suddenly NASA has realized that they have not had a satellite lose orbit and crash to Eath since the great scare of 2008.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldne ... Earth.html

Now we are informed a "dead satellite" will crash again before the end of the month.

http://www.space.com/12928-falling-sate ... -nasa.html

Photo included of this satellite.

Please note, I still maintain that an object the size of a bus could not be seen, or it's reputed flash with the naked eye from 32,000 miles. And in light of the Tesla technology reminders and research by Marconi it is completely unnecessary, and hardly likely to work as advertised with any advantage from such a distance. :P
pov603
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Re: Satellites : general discussion and musings

Unread post by pov603 »

I notice in the article they mentioned the following:
The $750 million UARS spacecraft was launched in 1991 aboard NASA's space shuttle Discovery to study ozone and other chemical compounds in Earth's atmosphere. Since that time, international standards and best practices for dealing with a spacecraft's end of life have been put in place.

"Now, they have to save enough fuel to either put the satellite in a graveyard orbit or guide it back in" to Earth in a controlled manner, Samson told SPACE.com. "That wasn't actually standard operating procedure back then."
It would be interesting to find out what the 'fuel' is and 'how much' is needed to prevent happening what is happening.
One other thing, if on re-entry, there will be 26 pieces that will survive, the rest vapourising no doubt, how can these items survive reentry at speeds in excess of 1,000 - 17,000 miles per hour [?} whereas there have been three instances only ever recorded, of a plane, doing less than 600 mph, vapourising on contact with a steel/glass and concrete building?
simonshack
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Re: Satellites : general discussion and musings

Unread post by simonshack »

SmokingGunII wrote:The shit continues.......they have "twins" in space now.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-14825641

;)

A quote from that NASA "Grail Twins" article :
A Delta rocket sent the Grail twins on their way. Its launch from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station occurred at 09:08 EDT (13:08 GMT; 14:08 BST).
The journey to the Moon is a slow cruise, however. The duo is not expected to enter into orbit until the turn of the year.
In comparison, Apollo 11 made the trip in four days :
APOLLO11 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_11
Launch date July 16, 1969 13:32:00 UTC
Lunar landing July 20, 1969 20:17:40 UTC
Am I missing something? :blink:
fred
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Re: Satellites : general discussion and musings

Unread post by fred »

simonshack wrote:Am I missing something? :blink:
Didn't you ever read The Right Stuff? They used go-getting fighter pilots on the Apollo missions because they wanted to fly really fast. With an empty spaceship, who's inside to make it go really fast? When the boss is not around you work slower. It's the same in space.

A simple, rational explanation courtesy of "Occam's Razor."

Of course, you also have to consider the state of the economy and the fact that the Democrats are in office. It's probably a concession to the unions.

Anyway, who are you to question these things? You've never been to the moon. You're not a rocket scientist. NASA made the greatest trip in human history and now you're doubting their missions? Oh for shame, for shame.
chuck22
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Re: Satellites : general discussion and musings

Unread post by chuck22 »

I have first hand knowledge that indeed bring the notion of satellites into question. When I worked on radios in the Marine Corps, we had many antennas to work with, to include satellite antennas. When we were training on a new system with a new vhf antenna, we stumbled upon a glitch if you will. We were able to receive satellite communications on this new antenna. Ooops. Satellites are indeed a scam! What they really are: Coding/Decoding transmitters utilizing algorithms to code and decode particular frequency bands. In fact, if you've ever terminated a contract with a satellite tv carrier, you might have had to take this gizmo off of the dish and turn it in. I couldn't tell you exactly what frequency range it is utilizing, but I can tell you that it is distorted by weather patterns such as rain. I believe it would be in the HF band though, which is long range capable and more feasible from the perspective of profit.
nonhocapito
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Re: Satellites : general discussion and musings

Unread post by nonhocapito »

chuck22 wrote:I have first hand knowledge that indeed bring the notion of satellites into question. When I worked on radios in the Marine Corps, we had many antennas to work with, to include satellite antennas. When we were training on a new system with a new vhf antenna, we stumbled upon a glitch if you will. We were able to receive satellite communications on this new antenna. Ooops. Satellites are indeed a scam! What they really are: Coding/Decoding transmitters utilizing algorithms to code and decode particular frequency bands. In fact, if you've ever terminated a contract with a satellite tv carrier, you might have had to take this gizmo off of the dish and turn it in. I couldn't tell you exactly what frequency range it is utilizing, but I can tell you that it is distorted by weather patterns such as rain. I believe it would be in the HF band though, which is long range capable and more feasible from the perspective of profit.
I think you have to explain a little better this post. You say that "satellites are a scam" but then it seems that you are just talking about satellite TV.
Also can you please elaborate on these transmitters you talk about. Do you suppose they are in fact in orbit, or are they -as it has been suggested previously on this thread- located on land and sending a signal that bounces off the stratosphere?
Also i don't follow exactly how receiving non-encoded satellite signals by accident as it happened to you (I imagine you mean TV satellites signals) makes the satellites in general a scam. I was under the assumption that the presence of a decoder of the signal is the reason why they can make you pay for it. It goes without saying that there must be ways around it. The real question we are discussing in this thread is whether it would be possible for satellites to not even be real. Which would leave us with the need to explain a number of technical solutions, from gps to weather monitoring to satellite phones and tv.
chuck22
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Re: Satellites : general discussion and musings

Unread post by chuck22 »

nonhocapito wrote: I think you have to explain a little better this post. You say that "satellites are a scam" but then it seems that you are just talking about satellite TV.
Also can you please elaborate on these transmitters you talk about. Do you suppose they are in fact in orbit, or are they -as it has been suggested previously on this thread- located on land and sending a signal that bounces off the stratosphere?
Also i don't follow exactly how receiving non-encoded satellite signals by accident as it happened to you (I imagine you mean TV satellites signals) makes the satellites in general a scam. I was under the assumption that the presence of a decoder of the signal is the reason why they can make you pay for it. It goes without saying that there must be ways around it. The real question we are discussing in this thread is whether it would be possible for satellites to not even be real. Which would leave us with the need to explain a number of technical solutions, from gps to weather monitoring to satellite phones and tv.
It's all proprietary algorithms utilizing radio waves. Occams Razor applies here. Ask yourself, can the operations of the above equipment (you mentioned) be accomplished with standard radio waves? Yes. Then- No satellite needed in explanation or in actual use.
GPS: Radio Waves
Weather Monitoring: (Multi)-Radar
Satellite Phones: Radio Waves
TV: Radio Waves (Please remember, houses use to have a standard antenna to receive over the air TV before transitioning over to HD which, is the same thing you receive on your decoder (called a satellite dish).

I say again: Satellites need not exist to accomplish communications for all of these mediums.
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