I have written in the past about what I call “Operation Fantasy Land.” I surmised that to the extent that Intelligence has been promoting and publicizing analysis of media fakery (and even creating an entire clueless forum devoted to the topic), they are using it to misdirect. One method of misdirection is to take it too far and lead us off into fantasy land, where we throw the baby of truth out with the bathwater of lies. Once a person comes to the realization that they have been surrounded their entire lives with an endless menagerie of lies, it is easier to convince them that the Earth is flat or that rockets can’t work in a vacuum and therefore we’ve never launched anything into space.

While I personally don’t believe either of those things are true, I could not really pinpoint where the lies end and the truth begins. I’m damned certain that Space-X didn’t launch a car into space on its way to Mars, and I’m nearly certain the Apollo imagery of men walking and riding on the moon was all faked. And I’ve also seen enough analysis of some footage from ISS to know there is fakery afoot there. But does that mean, for example, that all of the ISS imagery is faked? That nobody is really up in that tin can? Does it mean that there is no ISS and the thing we can observe through our backyard telescopes zooming through the sky is an elaborate hoax? Could be. If “Operation Fantasy Land” is a thing, then it means that fake imagery can be produced on purpose even if the thing it supposedly depicts is real.

Here is how I put it in the past: “We see the same thing with faked NASA imagery. They are using that imagery (and, I now suspect, deliberately creating obviously fake imagery) in order to misdirect people into the Flat Earth fantasy land. Just because some NASA footage is faked, doesn’t necessarily mean that all footage is faked. And even if all footage is faked, it doesn’t necessarily follow that the Earth is flat or that NASA can’t even so much as launch a satellite into space. In those examples, it’s very easy to see how the conclusions do not follow from the premises. But in other cases, it isn’t because the inferential leap is much smaller and usually more logical.”

Honestly, I’ve never really cared enough about this issue to really dig in to it and try to figure out where is the frontier between lies and truth. Nor am I willing to just throw my hands up and declare it all fake. But perhaps the readers of this blog would like to take a crack at it.

There was a long discussion in the comments of the ‘Defense of Miles Mathis’ thread (I would say it kicks off right around this comment here), and so at Jared’s suggestion I decided to devote a new post for discussion about these types of issues. He is the one who created the fake space image above using compositing. Keep in mind that promotion of Flat Earth in this thread will be grounds for immediate suspension of commenting privileges.

Here I’ll paste the most recent and relevant comments related to the question of whether it is even possible to lift heavy objects (like the Hubble telescope) into space. That conversation starts here, but there is more in the comments section below that about other topics as well. At the bottom I conclude with a request and suggestion for continuing this part of the conversation.

Rolleikin:

My belief is that Hubble is just another piece of fairy tale hardware like moon buggies and Mars rovers. There are ground based photos of the heavens that rival “Hubble images” and there are also aircraft like this …
https://www.sofia.usra.edu/multimedia/about-sofia/sofia-aircraft

… not to mention good old computer generated imagery.

But, there I go starting another argument, I suppose.

Jared (in reply to Rolleikin): 

We don’t really have any hard evidence that Hubble is fake, do we? I mean some technical holes, but I remain unconvinced. Why? Two reasons.

One. we have other mainstream devices and observatories spitting out tons of excellent data and imagery to compare it with. The Solar Dynamic Observatory for example – which spits out new images of the sun in every spectrum, every day, and has for eight years now. And they’re really good pictures too.

https://sdo.gsfc.nasa.gov/

Could they just have some dudes on staff to crank out new CGI art every day? Or a complex computer program to spit it out? Maybe. But take a look at those pics and tell me what you think.

And second, because I’m in CGI, and as I mentioned above this image and most of what we see from Hubble is not remotely like what the tools allow. I do a lot of particle physics stuff (mostly to try to demonstrate Miles’ theories) too and it would take me a LOT of work to come even close to that image, and I would still be able to tell it was faked. My guess is most of you would, too. I try to hit SOME level of realism but the tools aren’t geared towards such massive space sims in that fashion. Here’s what I mean. though sure there are people far more skilled than I in the field and sure if they pay them the big bucks to slave over it, they would achieve better results since they wouldn’t have to work otherwise to make a living, but:

Please don’t get me wrong, I don’t blindly follow anything. Especially from the mainstream! But unless someone could explain how or show me where that pic above of the center of the galaxy environs was faked, I remain skeptical but content with it as data to discuss for now.

Andrea (in reply to rolleikin):

Unfortunately I agree with you. I say unfortunately because I rather would believe that all these technical achievements are true.

The Hubble is a big disappointment for me.
Mathematically it is IMPOSSIBLE to bring 11 tons into low earth orbit (LEO). I encourage you to do the math.

Allegedly, they repaired it in space sending the shuttle, which is even heavier and has to return to earth. Twice impossible!

The repairs lasted four hours in sunlight. What about the orbit? They are supposed to go from sun to shadow every hour or so, not every five. I am formulating it vaguely because NASA gives typically contradictory data (which is suspicious, if you only need to read them, but is the result of contradictions that come up).

How do they cool the instruments or the astronauts in space?

Lastly, why do you need a telescope on a plane, if you have Hubble?

Jared: 

I’m confused about your information regarding Hubble and its (assumed, alleged) launch.

Hubble:
Launch mass 11,110 kg (24,490 lb)[1]

Discovery:
Payload to LEO 27,500 kg (60,600 lb)

Given the mission statements, the space shuttle DIscovery had more than enough leftover delta-V to take up Hubble AND these secondary payloads:

“Secondary payloads included the IMAX Cargo Bay Camera (ICBC) to document operations outside the crew cabin and a handheld IMAX camera for use inside the orbiter. Also included were the Ascent Particle Monitor (APM) to detect particulate matter in the payload bay; a Protein Crystal Growth (PCG) experiment to provide data on growing protein crystals in microgravity, Radiation Monitoring Equipment III (RME III) to measure gamma ray levels in the crew cabin; Investigations into Polymer Membrane Processing (IPMP) to determine porosity control in the microgravity environment, and an Air Force Maui Optical Site (AMOS) experiment.”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STS-31#Mission_highlights

I’m not defending NASA or whatever here out of hand, but I don’t know if I’m ready to jettison the space shuttle yet. I don’t see why the Gravity Turn isn’t a viable approach to Low-Earth-Orbit, and that’s the Shuttle’s main role really. You can’t do it sooner because those boosters and tank need to drop off clean, and the best way to do that safely is still in the vertical ascent. So the Shuttle does the Turn after that, which is where it begins to outrun the Earth’s gravity.

That’s the story, anyway. The Shuttle doesn’t have to haul 12 tons up to space by itself. Most of the acceleration is still being done by the boosters, the real heavy lifting.

Andrea:

I understand your confusion very well!
Years ago I was calculating the Apollo flights to understand once and for all if it was possible or not to fly to the moon. I don’t know enough of photography to judge if the pictures are photoshopped or not, but I am an engineer by education, so numbers are my thing!

What I realized was shocking: not only it is not possible to fly to the moon, it is not even possible to send manned stations to LEO!
I started searching the internet to see if someone else had discovered the problem. And this is how I discovered Miles!!

Obviously, Miles doesn’t address the math of rockets but I found his physics stuff very interesting. Only later I looked into his „art“ papers. Since we now understand the amount of fakery, it is not that much surprising that most of nasa is a hollywood or walt disney production…

The question is finally, what is real and what not?

I think it is realistic to assume that a rocket can reach orbit or fly into the solar system. With a small cargo (one or two tons at most).
The ratio cargo to rocket should be 1,5% at most for LEO, much less for interstellar missions. All Apollo missions are thus fake, all russian, chinese, Indian missions are fake, the ISS is fake, Hubble is fake. However I assume that a few hundred small satellites are real. So they can provide real pictures.

It is not possible to come back or land on a planet or a moon or a comet. It requires even more energy. So all rovers on planets are fake. There is no doubt about that.

If someone among the readers is upset by my statements, and thinks otherwise, please provide your numbers. I will gladly tear them apart, one by one.

Russell Taylor:

Andrea…. I tend to agree after I watched a brilliant lecture showing the math behind rocket launches but as with most of the YouTube video’s I have watched on controversial subject, they no longer seem to exist. YouTube censorship in action? The man was showing the impossibility of getting those Shuttle payloads into orbit.
We have to believe the numbers NASA give for gross lift off weights and payloads as they are the ones who should know.
Believe NASA? I can’t believe I just said that!
But they lie about so many things how can we believe the numbers?

This is the description of the first Hubble servicing mission: https://asd.gsfc.nasa.gov/archive/hubble/missions/sm1.html

Notice they say a few small mirrors the size of a nickel were needed, then say the thing was the size of a telephone booth. So what size was it? Tiny or huge? Maybe the booth was filled with special space engineers? Maybe it was a huge toolkit? Maybe it was a mobile canteen for the engineers to shower and get something to eat & drink?

This weapon is for use in the lower atmosphere but would be far more efficient and useful in space.
https://www.livescience.com/60029-how-futuristic-laser-weapons-use-telephone-tech.html

Jared:

I must politely disagree with both of you, and would like to see the math you’re using so we can find where it went wrong.

Orbital dynamics are about acceleration – ▲v (delta-v) or “change in velocity”. A space-launching craft’s limits are defined by its total ▲v-budget, which is a measure of its acceleration of course, but also a measure of its acceleration against its thrust-to-weight ratio since we have two MORE changes over time. First, the TWR increases dramatically as fuel is used, increasing the acceleration also dramatically.

That’s what the gravity turn is. You hit the point of diminishing returns on atmospheric escape, and you turn perpendicular to “outpace” the pull of gravity. You’re up high enough to negate most of the drag of the atmosphere when you begin the turn.

The Space Shuttle’s ▲v budget was more than enough on paper to pull LEO with 55,000 pounds of cargo.

“The Space Shuttle weighed 165,000 pounds empty. Its external tank weighed 78,100 pounds empty and its two solid rocket boosters weighed 185,000 pounds empty each. Each solid rocket booster held 1.1 million pounds of fuel.”

The combined mass fully fueled is said to be “4,470,000 lb”, or 2,070 tons. Hubble was said to be 24,490 pounds. That makes Hubble just over HALF a percent of the total weight, at .0054.

“The ratio cargo to rocket should be 1,5% at most for LEO”

So even by your own math and logic, Hubble is 1/3 of that ratio. Even with the rest of the cargo for that mission it would have been barely 1%.

Andrea:

Please find numbers in kg, m/s etc. otherwise it becomes very confusing. Nasa does it on purpose this way, you hardly find two numbers that match. Then we go over it together.

Jared:

It’s not confusing, just simple division. We don’t need velocity in these ratios at all. You said “ratio” previously so that’s what I did. It is just percentages, which are ratios. It doesn’t matter which metric you use as long as you use the same metric for your division. The ratio is the same no matter if you use pounds, grams, stones, or copper pfennigs.

Hubble mass / total Shuttle mass = .5%, or ~½ a percent.

24,490 / 4,470,000 = 0.00548

.005 = .5%

You stated previously:
“The ratio cargo to rocket should be 1,5% at most for LEO”

Thus:
.5 / 1.5 = .333, which is 1/3.

Hubble is one-third of the mass limit you defined and less than half of Discovery’s payload limit of 55,000, which is also still below 1.5%. We can check that for you as well if you like:

55,000 / 4,470,000 = 0.01230

.012 = 1.2%

So even according to your premise, the Shuttle at max payload is still well below that “ratio cargo to rocket”. The Shuttle could have carried almost 3 Hubbles, if it could have fit them in the cargo bay. This is why I was confused about your math, because it doesn’t seem like you did any when forming your premise that they couldn’t have launched it or the following repair equipment.

Russell Taylor:

The reason I tend to agree with Andrea that the figures are made up is because the person I saw a few years ago, giving the talk was highly qualified in another area, jet propulsion I believe, and just couldn’t believe the figures he was seeing in NASAs descriptions. He analysed it in the same way Miles does and proved it didn’t make sense. But then you try to find his video and it’s gone. In it’s place are several video’s showing the same disbelief but by people who seem spooky, like they are unsure of their own math, as if they are black-washing the whole idea…or to put it another way deliberately making themselves look stupid.

We never see how far technology has progressed. The stuff they show in the media is probably 10 or more years out of date. Perfect example is the F117 Stealth bomber. No one knew it existed until someone took a blurry photo thinking it was a UFO. It wasn’t revealed to the public until 10 years later but this was 20 years after it was first test flown and put into production.

So if they are showing Humvee mounted crowd dispersing microwave weapons and admitting using them in the Iraq wars, and also laser weapons shooting down full sized drone aircraft, then I wonder what else they have up their sleeves?
How far have they developed these weapons?

Over the years there have been several maintenance missions to the Hubble, to do what exactly? Its a telescope with several specialist cameras. So why the multiple multi-million dollar missions to do what….change the flippin’ batteries? Clean the lenses?

I don’t doubt they send stuff up there but to make the ISS completely believable for the continued in-pouring of tax-dollars, I believe they fudge the numbers, sending up maybe 4 ton loads not 29 tons at a time.

They did the same trick with the Apollo 11 numbers where they brought back lots of heavy rock yet used a tiny amount of fuel to push back into lunar orbit, including lining up to rendezvous with the orbiter. With about the same computing power as a ZX81.

To push the fakery a bit more, they say the thrust when landing didn’t move a lot of dust because in a vacuum the jet efflux disperses as soon as it exits the exhaust nozzle.
Pack of lies! Watch a video of the jet thrusters on the Shuttle keeping the thing flying straight.

The burnt gas can clearly be seen exiting straight out from the thrusters and continuing in a straight line. It does not disperse in the way NASA describe….not that we need to travel down that endless avenue of deceit in this thread…
They lie about everything… isn’t that what Miles says?

Andrea:

Jared, this is supposed to be fun! Before we start, think to a Las Vegas magic show. The magician will show you a lot of (irrelevant) details and conceal the trick. Nasa is doing very smart tricks. They do it under our nose, but they are smart, intelligent and experienced.

Miles showed us that most of the time the mathematicians write equations that are not properly defined in order to extrapolate whatever result they need. If I wrote „3=7 and therefore if follows…“ everyone would call the contradiction. If I hide the same equation in a very complex formula, hardly anyone will notice.

I asked you to pick your numbers and I will be very generous with the assumptions. While the correct ratio is likely more 0.5% I don’t mind if we assume 1.5% will work as well. We have to start somewhere and I am willing to agree on a lot of numbers, even though I might know better.

To begin the show we need a fully loaded cargo and assume it can reach orbit. Don’t be too impatient, the topic is complex!

Jared:

I mean the show began already and in that show, I showed the math twice and it fell well below your personal limit of feasibility at 1.5%, so I don’t know why you can’t just admit that. It was simple math, so you don’t need to hedge on this topic. I refuse to believe one simple division is beyond your capacity. You’re hedging out of pride is all. It’s okay to be wrong – I try to do it at least once a day myself, just to keep some measure of humility.

In addition, I have logged thousands of flight tests and orbital tests in the best simulator around, KSP. Most of the craft we designed failed to get to orbit, by pilot error or design error or both. But once you dial in your ▲v-budget properly and get your gravity turn right, it’s really not that hard to get into ANY orbit. I’ve done countless Hohmann Transfers, orbit-matching, and even docking procedures as well. Landed on the Mun, and other planets too, all using existing rocketry techniques. Some fiction is involved with futuristic add-ons such as the HX and OPT-Spaceplane parts, and MechJeb automation, but it’s all based on actual, real mechanics and actual, real physics. They of course don’t have the charge field and use the modified Pi just as the mainstream does, but otherwise it is dead-on accurate and easily the most accurate simulator available.

The hardest orbits to achieve are with spaceplanes, since you have to fly into your gravity turn in a different way. You have to get up fast enough and hard enough but not vertically, and hit that 2,200 m/s velocity laterally, switching between air-breathing engines and rocketry modes, and still have enough remaining ▲v to circularize the orbit once you get up there. It’s much more difficult – and this may be why there are no spaceplanes yet, in reality too. It’s MUCH more difficult to pull off.

What this means is that the math and physics for achieving orbit are real and work. Miles has added to this and fixed big parts of it, but to claim that they don’t work means one hasn’t studied the topic, and is just putting faith in… Someone else who hasn’t studied it very well.

This doesn’t mean by any stretch that everything they tell us about the space programs and satellites and telescopes and the ISS is true, it simply means that orbital mechanics are real and we can even prove it just by watching the moon for a few months. The moon orbits the Earth, remember? Real.

Andrea:

And of course we need velocities. To reach LEO nasa tells us we need a speed of 9.3 to 10 km/s. Pick your favorite. We don’t know the direction of the speed, it could be orbital velocity, or tangential velocity or a combination. From Miles paper you should know that he found plenty of problems in the definition of orbital velocity. All, that applies to small objects, applies to rockets as well. Pick your favorite again.

At start the air friction is very relevant, so rockets start vertically, then go tangential over 20-30 km, where the atmosphere is very this. We don’t at which height they turn, pick your choice.

Delta-v is an approximation without air friction, in open space. Never mind, we will just ignore friction. The logic behind the formula is that of action equal reaction. If we let a rocket engine fire in one direction, we will get an acceleration in the opposite direction. The mass of the carburant on one side times the speed is equal to mass of the rocket on the other side times another speed. The problem is more complex by the fact that the carburant is cargo at the beginning so you need to accelerate stuff that you are going to burn. Never mind, for our imaginary rocket we will assume that the acceleration is instantaneous!

This, I hope you realize it, is a great simplification. Coincidentally the same assumption is also included in the delta-v formula. In other words, if you use it you are assuming the rocket is accelerating to the final speed without air friction, in an instant. I am accepting all these parameters, but understand we are being very generous.

For our imaginary rocket we need a starting mass, a final speed, a final orbit height. Pick your favorites.

Jared:

You don’t appear to be reading my responses anymore, so I’ll go ahead and let you play your orbital mechanics game on your own, my dear.

Being able to admit when we’re wrong is the most important thing when studying and hypothesizing science. If we can’t do that, it’s going to be difficult to learn anything or teach anything, which is the point of these conversations, wouldn’t you say? Do you genuinely want to learn about orbital dynamics, or do you just want to be right about something we already showed you were wrong about? You’re misdirecting away from the simple math at this point.

---

 

From there things started to devolve into accusations. I’d like us to try not to pull off that path and stick to substance. It seems to me that Jared’s math has not been shown to be wrong. If it is, then it should be easy to show, even if the topic is complicated. Andrea, you said you already did the math in the past and found that it doesn’t work out–there’s no way they could have brought the hubble into orbit. Would it be too much for you to respond to Jared’s calculations with calculations of your own? There is no rush to provide a substantive response if you need more time.