Satellites : general discussion and musings

[hollycrap]

France's Pleiades Earth observation satellite captured this image of the silent Envisat satellite on April 15, 2012, from a distance of about 100 km. Credit: CNES

ESA’s mysteriously silent Envisat Earth observing satellite has been observed and imaged by another satellite in space. France’s space agency (CNES) pulled off an on-orbit coup, using their high-resolution Pleiades satellite to take a picture of Envisat from about 100 km. The good news is that engineers were able to determine Envisat is fully intact and has not been obviously damaged by impacts by space debris or meteoroids. The massive Envisat fell silent on April 8 after 10 years of service – twice its designed lifetime — providing high quality images and data of our changing Earth.

“We are really grateful to CNES for offering to acquire images of Envisat using their Pleiades and Spot satellites,” said Volker Liebig, ESA’s Director of Earth Observation Programs. “Additional observations being acquired across the globe show how the international space community has come together to track this veteran satellite.”

Previous optical, radar and laser observations of Envisat show it is still in a stable orbit. However, engineers have not even been able to determine if the satellite is in ‘safe mode’ or if it has just gone dead. They say knowing this would be a starting point for revival and the recovery team is drawing on every information source available. If it is in safe mode, it may be possible to re-establish communications.

CNES was able to rotate the Pleiades satellite to capture images of Envisat. These images are being used to determine the orientation of Envisat’s solar panel – the satellite’s power source – to see if it is in a good position to generate power.

Envisat has been helping researchers examine our planet, completing more than 50,000 orbits and returned thousands of images, as well as a wealth of data about the land, oceans and atmosphere.

http://www.universetoday.com/94744/esas ... satellite/

[pawelos77]

For those who saw a satellite with the bare eye . I did a simple experiment. I took a 1 m wide item. Stood in front of it 1m off and took the tailoring rule. Closed one eye and measured it. It was 28 cm, 2m-15cm, 3m-8cm. A van from 400m- 4mm. For those who saw a satellite with telescope. If you can see anything- it would be like standing 1km roughly off the van which is traveling with the speed at least 3500 km/s . Good luck with following it or make a picture. The objects you confuse with satelites are huge.

[hollycrap]

For those who saw a satellite with the bare eye . I did a simple experiment. I took a 1 m wide item. Stood in front of it 1m off and took the tailoring rule. Closed one eye and measured it. It was 28 cm, 2m-15cm, 3m-8cm. A van from 400m- 4mm. For those who saw a satellite with telescope. If you can see anything- it would be like standing 1km roughly off the van which is traveling with the speed at least 3500 km/s . Good luck with following it or make a picture. The objects you confuse with satelites are huge.

When I was a kid I saw with the bare eye, in a clear blue sky a shining object resembling a gyrating soccer ball drifting through the sky. We thought it was a satellite. Today with the knowledge I have, I know it must have been drifting pretty close to the ground say 10 to 20 miles above, and in fact it must have been big. Probably a weather balloon or something.

[whatsgoingon]

Asteroid mining: how it might work – interactive
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/interactive/2012/apr/24/asteroid-mining-how-work-interactive

A new company called Planetary Resources, with investors and advisers including the Google bosses Larry Page and Eric Schmidt and the Avatar director James Cameron, aims to mine valuable metals from the asteroids that routinely zoom past the Earth. Along with gold, platinum and other metals, the company hopes to find water, which could provide the raw material for rocket fuel, raising the possibility of fuel stations for passing deep-space rockets

$$ Investors $$ step right up. Send your money to my Paypal account. You will be rich. Hey look even rich bosses do this to get richer. Send all your money here.

[Kentrailer]

Not sure if you guys have seen this video before (probably)

This is the original: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THV-AIeYoUc

I shortened it to point out the edits:


full link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h34ofuSfAmQ

There are a number of video edits, with continuous audio.

It looks like this footage was comprised of 4 different scenes- Probably a mixture of the water tank ISS and some CGI.

They never look out the portal to see the view of earth?
------------------------------

Also, not sure if you guys have seen this treasure trove of high resolution "ISS" pictures, including the landing in Russia:

http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/stati ... llery.html


Looks like a bad video game!


What a frickin' joke! Don't remember seeing that robot in the ISS footage from above..


This picture looks like it's paying homage to the faked Yuri Gagarin landing images, complete with helicopters behind, and snow..

[pov603]

Not sure if you guys have seen this video before (probably)

This is the original: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THV-AIeYoUc

I shortened it to point out the edits:


full link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=278G5vxDQyM

I remember when someone else has posted this and the one thing that seemed odd or possibly a 'coincidence' was that, as in a weightless environment there is no 'up' or 'down' why was it that the 'cameraman' always happened upon his colleagues in the 'up' position?

[simonshack]

This picture looks like it's paying homage to the faked Yuri Gagarin landing images, complete with helicopters behind, and snow..

Compare with this image of "March 2011 Soyuz landing"...

[arc300]

Kentrailer wrote:

Not sure if you guys have seen this video before (probably)

This is the original: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THV-AIeYoUc

From 1.08, space cadet Satoshi looks embarrassingly CGI. For some reason he reminds me of Herbert Moon from Red Dead Redemption.
The way his face and eyes are kind of puffed-up, the strange way he blinks, his stiff and unnatural arms are quite creepy. I wonder if it's a real person filmed under water, as Kentrailer speculated.

[lux]

The way his face and eyes are kind of puffed-up, the strange way he blinks, his stiff and unnatural arms are quite creepy. I wonder if it's a real person filmed under water, as Kentrailer speculated.

Yes, I've noticed this too with regards to a number of ISS vids. Looking at the odd appearance of the eyes I can't help thinking they are under water (or some fluid).

[Kentrailer]

The way his face and eyes are kind of puffed-up, the strange way he blinks, his stiff and unnatural arms are quite creepy. I wonder if it's a real person filmed under water, as Kentrailer speculated.

Yes, I've noticed this too with regards to a number of ISS vids. Looking at the odd appearance of the eyes I can't help thinking they are under water (or some fluid).

full link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THV-AIeYoUc

@ 1:20 in the video above, when the scuba-diver approaches Brian he reaches the glass bubble/or screen.

The scubadiver's audio voice was added after the fact.

Brian is dry- the person filming is wet- that's why the cuts and audio issues.

I'm thinking it's either a flat piece of glass, or the inverse of this:



Notice how the white "air duct" or whatever it's supposed to be has a silver connector joint right where the glass should be: Because it can't go through the plexi glass.

When Brian hands the guitar over- they do a cut! - It's like Hollywood!! BRIAN becomes the cameraman! it's not continuous.. because you can't hand a guitar through a plexi glass barrier!

[fbenario]

Compare with this image of "March 2011 Soyuz landing"...

That red/white striped, inflated bag in the center with a nipple looks like an old hot-water bottle that folks would put under their sheets to warm their feet on cold nights. Absurd.

[Kentrailer]

Further evidence that we are dealing with a scuba diver who approaches a plexi-glass barrier:


full link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uk9ptueTDwY
@ 3:30 the scuba diver approaches the plexi glass barrier.. in this version, there is no silver connector, but instead an unruly "out of place" piece of tape that gets in the way and obscures the connection between the water area and the area that is dry. Even with that tape, it's obvious the white tube has once again been split.. and is not continuous.




vs: the "connector" used for the 2nd video (I'm sure people would ask why the astronots were so busy playing guitar and not securing loose tape).. so the solution: A silver connector piece!

[arc300]

Kentrailer wrote:
[url]full link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uk9ptueTDwY[/url]

Check out the way the strings are set up from the nut to the tuning pegs. I can't make sense of it. In general, they look fine in the video so maybe I'm just looking too hard.




And BTW, great stuff, Kentrailer.

[simonshack]

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ADMIN NOTICE: A series of posts from here on have been moved to the DERAILING ROOM (they were NOT deleted):
viewtopic.php?p=2369808#p2369808

[nonhocapito]

The video in question is really outrageously phony, fake and false... but I don't think that the plexiglas/aquarium hypothesis is necessarily the correct one. The guitar in the hands of the actornaut is seen "floating" even though it is supposed to be in the "dry" part.
See around mark 4:00 in the video:


full link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uk9ptueTDwY

Also, in the "sequel" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THV-AIeYoUc) the metal joint in the white duct is in a different position, meaning it does not mark the confines of a plastic bubble. Besides the work necessary to clean away water bubbles and reflections from the footage could be even more tedious than creating the whole thing with special effects.

I think there is some other kind of system in place to put together the whole magic trick.