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.
rusty
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Re: Satellites : general discussion and musings

Unread post by rusty »

Maat wrote: These videos, supposedly original German footage of V2 rockets, show a series of launches; one at 0:53 then about 10 from 1:31:
Yeah Maat, supposedly original, in color. My best guess is that these are models shown in slow motion to make it look bigger. Lookout mountain productions, probably.

I always wondered how those rockets were supposed to reach a precise target like London which is some hundred kilometers away when they could not even make it launch correctly. How can you steer a rocket? One you don't even see? Is a radar blip sufficient? How fast can you say load of bullcrap?
Maat
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Re: Satellites : general discussion and musings

Unread post by Maat »

rusty wrote:
Maat wrote: These videos, supposedly original German footage of V2 rockets, show a series of launches; one at 0:53 then about 10 from 1:31:
Yeah Maat, supposedly original, in color. My best guess is that these are models shown in slow motion to make it look bigger. Lookout mountain productions, probably.

I always wondered how those rockets were supposed to reach a precise target like London which is some hundred kilometers away when they could not even make it launch correctly. How can you steer a rocket? One you don't even see? Is a radar blip sufficient? How fast can you say load of bullcrap?
Oh I agree, Rusty, the V2 rockets' alleged "success", "guide beams" etc. is a very dubious story (whatever was actually being dropped in 1944-45); but since the Germans were just as expert at producing their own faked footage for propaganda, those old flicks were probably their own model productions (further edited/enhanced in US hands, of course).

What is most conspicuous in the V2 "test" films is the absence of any visual size/scale reference in launches, with people only shown around a stationary "rocket"/mock-up http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WjFTN-YdK_M :
V2 rocket-toon.jpg
V2 rocket-toon.jpg (21.48 KiB) Viewed 19050 times
http://youtu.be/OdBh54MoZRE

No people or vehicles:
V2 rocket-toon2.jpg
V2 rocket-toon2.jpg (26.94 KiB) Viewed 19050 times


Quite a contrast from their V1 films showing soldiers hauling them to the launch ramp etc.


full link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QY308O42Ur4

So all their "rockets" appear to be cartoons of cartoons — for the last 70 years! :rolleyes:
simonshack
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Re: Satellites : general discussion and musings

Unread post by simonshack »

Maat wrote:
So all their "rockets" appear to be cartoons of cartoons — for the last 70 years! :rolleyes:
Wile E Coyote would love it! :P
Image

Fortunately, the British populace was well-prepared to take evasive action! :lol: :lol: :lol:
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Maat
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Re: Satellites : general discussion and musings

Unread post by Maat »

I know, Simon, their silly propaganda films were even goofier than they are now — although not by much, eh :lol:

But I was only comparing the more verifiable existence of the V1 buzz bombs (crap propaganda clips as Chuck Jones' inspiration notwithstanding :P) versus the apparently imaginary "V2". There seemed to be plenty of civilian and pilot witnesses of the V1s in flight (being shot down etc.), but none for the V2 "rockets."
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Re: Satellites : general discussion and musings

Unread post by simonshack »

*

If you still wonder if perhaps at least unmanned, satellite rocket launches must be real, try this. I've named this clip...


"The FOCKIN' ELL amateur video trio" :



full link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hl9u-h_btBo

Comments are welcome. :mellow:
Starbucked
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Re: Satellites : general discussion and musings

Unread post by Starbucked »

^^^ That was awesome. The "Blair Witch Project" of rocket launch videos :lol:
Starbucked
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Re: Satellites : general discussion and musings

Unread post by Starbucked »

I noticed that the Ariane 5 launches from Kourou in French Guiana.
It turns out that Kourou is just as remote as the Kosmodrome, or maybe more so.

Image

Says ESA:

http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Launc ... Spaceport2
In 1964 the French Government chose Kourou, from 14 other sites, as a base from which to launch its satellites.

Ideal launch site

Kourou lies at latitude 5°3', just over 500 km north of the equator. Its nearness to the equator makes it ideally placed for launches into geostationary transfer orbit as few changes have to be made to a satellite’s trajectory.

Launchers also profit from the ‘slingshot’ effect, that is the energy created by the speed of the Earth’s rotation around the axis of the Poles. This increases the speed of a launcher by 460 m per second. These important factors save fuel and money, and prolong the active life of satellites.

Safety is equally important. French Guiana is scarcely populated and 90% of the country is covered by equatorial forests. In addition there is no risk of cyclones or earthquakes.
The logistics of French Guiana for efficient launch is one thing. What I get out of this is that just like Baikonur, Kourou couldn't be more remote. The perfect staging site for faux (that's French for 'fake' B) ) rocketry.
simonshack
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Re: Satellites : general discussion and musings

Unread post by simonshack »

Starbucked wrote: What I get out of this is that just like Baikonur, Kourou couldn't be more remote. The perfect staging site for faux (that's French for 'fake' B) ) rocketry.
Oui, mon cher Starbucked...

The Kourou area is so very profoundly lost in the middle of bloody nowhere that its other 'claim to fame' is the *-ugh*- charming tourist destination of Devil Island - formerly the most unimaginably hellish and desolate dump on Earth ...

"Devil's Island and associated prisons eventually became one of the most infamous prison systems in history."


This Wickedpedia paragraph describing 'launch safety and procedures' at Kourou is très amusant :
Launch safety

Fire safety is ensured by a detachment of the Paris Fire Brigade. Safety around the base is ensured by French Gendarmerie forces, assisted by the 3rd Foreign Infantry Regiment of the French Foreign Legion.

Before and during launch windows, CSG facility security is significantly enhanced by anti-personnel [??!!] and anti-aircraft measures, the exact configurations of which are classified by the French military. All entrants to the launch complex are also subject to checks for proof of permission to enter the facility.

The Guiana Space Centre (as per CNES) also holds the Îles du Salut, a former penal colony including the infamous Devil's Island. Now a tourist site, the islands are under the launching trajectory for geosynchronous orbit and have to be evacuated during launches.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guiana_Space_Centre
So next time someone tells you he/she has actually attended an Ariane launch - you are fully entitled to doubt that person's word.
CitronBleu
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Re: Satellites : general discussion and musings

Unread post by CitronBleu »

Starbucked wrote:I noticed that the Ariane 5 launches from Kourou in French Guiana.
It turns out that Kourou is just as remote as the Kosmodrome, or maybe more so.

[...]

The logistics of French Guiana for efficient launch is one thing. What I get out of this is that just like Baikonur, Kourou couldn't be more remote. The perfect staging site for faux (that's French for 'fake' B) ) rocketry.
Hi Starbucked,

Perhaps the French possess a sense of humour in their official space propaganda, since the first satellite they allegedly sent into orbit was named after Astérix, a French comic book character.

This satellite was purportedly sent into orbit on 26 November 1965 by French rocket "Diamant," from a base in Algeria.

Image
Satellite Astérix

The participants of the project had first planned to named the satellite "Zébulon," the name of a character mounted on a spring in the child cartoon series "Le Manège Enchanté " ("The Magic Turnabout").

Image

I0Jp_i8CGHE


full link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=37sTRcl8i0w
TITLE: Pollux - Le manège enchanté
[ADMIN: Old youtube link broken; link replaced -HP Dec. 21, 2017]


This series, targeted to children, has as its main plot a merry-go round belonging to father Pivoine (Père Pivoine). The merry-go round is used by the little Margote. Zébulon, mounted on a spring, transports her with the magical formula "Tournicoti... Tournicoton..." to the land of the "Bois Joli" ("Pretty Forest")
(http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Man%C3% ... hant%C3%A9)

Fearing ridicule, the French space agency CNES (Centre National d'Études Spatiales, founded by then president Charles de Gaule) renamed the satellite in honour of the hero of French cartoon series "Astérix le Gaulois."
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ast%C3%A9rix_(satellite)

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Last edited by CitronBleu on Fri Aug 30, 2013 2:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.
lux
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Re: Satellites : general discussion and musings

Unread post by lux »

"America's biggest rocket" launched a spy satellite yesterday from Southern California!

This gets my vote as the phoniest looking rocket launch ever.


full link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RW-zIkH6MeI
CitronBleu
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Re: Satellites : general discussion and musings

Unread post by CitronBleu »

Yes Lux, the footage appears unrealistic, or to the least appears as footage which could easily be staged with a $100 computer program and a few digital photography technicians involved in the trick.

I want to correct my previous post about the 1965 French satellite Astérix.

Apparently, the satellite was first named A-1 by the French space agency for Armée-1 (Army-1).

When presented with a description of the satellite, one of which pictured a spring, French news media were quick to dub the satellite by the name "Zébulon," which as described above was a character taken from a French cartoon series targeted to children.

Not only was the name Zébulon connected to a fantasy, but it also appeared very close to the Arabic word "Zebbi," a slang term referring to the male sexual appendage.

Faced with ridicule, the French space agency then decided to rename the satellite as Astérix, name for which it has since been known.

http://astronautique.actifforum.com/t11 ... -d-asterix

My question is: was there a form of skepticism in regard to the authenticity of the project in the first place? Was the public announcement of the success of France's first satellite just another paradigm of what the French call the "Info ou Intox" (information or intoxication/propaganda) debate?

I'm thinking of the analogy with the skeptism expressed by several American news media organizations in regard to the authenticity of the Russian Gagarin mission (first man in space) in 1961, before the announcement by the American spage agency of the Moon landing missions.
hoi.polloi
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Re: Satellites : general discussion and musings

Unread post by hoi.polloi »

lux wrote:This gets my vote as the phoniest looking rocket launch ever.
That's pretty terrible, it would certainly be a final contestant in a game show about the phoniness of satellites.

Can anyone show that this kind of pinkish lollipop sort of Star Wars light-saber exhaust is even physically possible?
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Re: Satellites : general discussion and musings

Unread post by Flabbergasted »

lux wrote:This gets my vote as the phoniest looking rocket launch ever.
As in other rocket launch videos, the "light smoke" (from 0:00 to 0:10) behaves like that of a scale model, or a cigar, not a huge rocket hundreds of feet away. Then, between 0:19 and 0:20, the rocket is suddenly dwarfed by a cloud of exhaust fumes. I am trying to make sense of the perspectives below but I am not doing too well... :blink:

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And what´s with the rainbow flag? A novel, politically correct design?

Image
lux
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Re: Satellites : general discussion and musings

Unread post by lux »

George Clooney has his own spy satellite! What a coincidence since his new space theme movie is just being released!
guardian_cloone.JPG
guardian_cloone.JPG (49.24 KiB) Viewed 6417 times
[Image from https://www.theguardian.com/world/2010/ ... ge-clooney]

Or, is it five spy satellites? It depends on which story you read but Clooney is said to be paying for the satellite spying of Sudan president Omar Al-Bashir who Clooney says is a war criminal. From what I can tell the MSM also agrees with this opinion of Omar ...

… and Clooney's pal Obama says Omar is a war criminal too so he must be one because B.O. is a Nobel Prize winner and that makes him an expert.

From the above linked Telegraph article:
... the satellite has been "incredibly successful" in curbing the violence during the day and in good weather …

...since his satellite has been deployed, attacks have only been happening at night, or when there is cloud cover. He has plans for this, too: he is going to equip his satellite with infra-red capabilities, so that it can be serviceable even when visibility levels are zero.
The article doesn't mention how Clooney is going to equip the satellite with infrared capabilities but perhaps he will enlist the aid of Elon Musk to fly one of his rockets up there and do the necessary modifications.

I spent a couple of hours researching the evidence for Omar's war crimes and wasn't very successful. I'm not defending the guy. Perhaps he is a monster -- I don't know -- but I couldn't really make heads or tails of the alleged evidence presented on Clooney's Satellite Sentinel Project web site. Most of the “satellite imagery” doesn't show much of anything that I can recognize. A few images do appear to show some damage but it doesn't look like anything you can definitely call war crimes. But then, even if an image does show destruction, it doesn't show who did it, right? Maybe some other forum members can find something more incriminating.

Anyway, I have a headache now from trying to make sense of Clooney's web site so that's all I'm going to post about this for now. :wacko:


[st]http://img11.imageshack.us/img11/575/icnh.jpg[/st]
[st]http://img23.imageshack.us/img23/8279/s67r.jpg[/st]
[EDIT: These image links were removed by the flakey ImageShack. Sorry for recommending that site. Seems it's hard to say how we can make images more archival. I replaced at least one of them with an image that seemed to match the theme of the post, more or less. -HP Dec. 21, 2017]
CitronBleu
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Re: Satellites : general discussion and musings

Unread post by CitronBleu »

Where do the 480 tons of solid-fuel for Ariane 5's two rocket boosters come from?


Image

Ariane 5 has two EAPs (Étages d'Accélération à Poudre), which are both alleged to carry a total of 480 tons of the following rubbery material called propergol solide:

Image
I could only find a picture of this magical solid fuel from a snapshot taken from French popular documentary series C'est Pas Sorcier.

Image
Ariane 5 EAP

The European Space Agency allegedly sends up to six Ariane 5 rockets every year into LEO, therefore the yearly production of propergol solide destined to the Kourou rocket base in French Guyana should be equal to 6 x 480 tons = 2,880 tons.

Yet I cannot find a single picture of a single gram of propergol solide, anywhere, besides the picture above which is a snapshot from a French science vulgarization TV show.
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