Fakery in Orbit: THE I$$

[dblitz]

Could they simply be hanging upside down? With additional effects, I should add. It would be half the job done, and would explain the seeming y-axis motion restriction pointed out by icarusinbound.

[lux]

The sitcom "Big Bang Theory" had an episode in which one of the characters was aboard the ISS. This video interview discusses this but gives little or no detail on how it was done:


full link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1fxoV8na9dM

However, since the "ISS" footage in that episode is pretty much exactly like NASA's ISS presentations it is obvious that the "floating astronaut" effects are easy for Hollywood to fake.

This page also discusses that episode but, again, gives very little detail on how it was done -– stating only:

"It was done by supporting the people from underneath," Shaffner revealed. "There was a very long, sort of skinny platform that a person could lie on and it would almost look like they were swimming through in weightlessness."

The "Big Bang Theory" episode was shot at Warner Bros. studios which is located in Burbank, CA and which also fits Chris Cassidy's description of "... a little town called York, Maine across the United States from where we're talking to you right now.”

[simonshack]

*

WHAT IS THIS "ISS" WE CAN SEE FLYING ABOVE US?

As you all may (or may not) know, NASA will alert you as to when the "ISS" will pass above your location - wherever you live. All you have to do is subscribe to the SPOT THE STATION 'newsletter' (submitting your location) - and they will periodically alert you to when the "ISS" will fly over your house. I have done so a while ago, and have watched this 'bright, moving star' passing over my house (in all sorts of directions - and seemingly 'at airliner altitude') on about seven or eight occasions so far.

This morning, I decided to look at it again. It was scheduled to pass over Rome at 5:27am. Here's the data NASA sent to my e-mail inbox:

Time: Tue Apr 01 5:27 AM, Visible: 5 min, Max Height: 77 degrees, Appears: NW, Disappears: ESE

So I went out in my garden overlooking Rome (my house is on a hillside South East of the "Eternal City") and looked up due NW. Sure enough, the "bright moving star" appeared in my NW horizon coming straight at me. This time, I had decided to time its passage with a stopwatch. It took approx 2,5 minutes from the moment I spotted it - to the moment it passed right above me and disappeared from my view (a 180° panorama of Rome and surroundings). So yes, if I had gone to the top of the "Tuscolo hill" (from which you have a 360° of my area), I would probably have been able to watch it for another 2,5 minutes as it flew further SouthEast - adding up to NASA's stated "5 minutes of visibility".

Now, here's a simple calculation of how far the "ISS" will travel in 2,5 minutes (providing its stated speed of 28.000km/h is true):

28.000km/hour / 60 = 466,66 km/min. Hence, in 2,5min (2min30sec) the "ISS" will travel > 466.66 X 2,5 = approx 1106km

This would mean that, at that moment in which my eyes first spotted it, the "ISS" would have been roughly over PARIS, France !!!:



Well, I must say that this is a pretty tough thing for my mind to envision as a visual possibility - even when considering that the "ISS" is meant to be orbiting at an altitude of about 400km. If you have never watched the "ISS" passing above your house, please know that its perceived speed and altitude (as gaugeable by our admittedly limited, earthbound senses) is very much similar to seeing a commercial airliner flying across your skyline field of view - at standard cruising speed and altitude.

As it is, from my hillside vantage point I can see the lights of commercial airliners every single night as they land on Rome's "AIRPORT B" (Ciampino). I would see a flight arriving from PARIS, for instance, as illustrated below. My "X" is a roughly estimated point which should be a fair guess as to WHEN I START seeing the lights of such inbound airplanes (at an approximated distance of 40km from my eyes) :


(NOTE: I don't think I ever see any airplane lights landing at Rome's "AIRPORT A" (Fiumicino) - as they're just too distant /angled from my view).

Here's a view from my house. I hope that the photo-captions are self-explanatory - as to my doubts about the claimed "ISS" speed of 28.000km/h:


So let me now postulate that the "ISS" that we can see flying above our homes is nothing but an airplane - cruising at say, 950km/h (the standard cruising / top speed of your average Boeing airliner). A simple calculation related to what I HAVE PERSONALLY VERIFIED WITH MY OWN EYES - yields a result which, lo and behold, would seem to corroborate my working postulation:

If the "ISS" were an airplane traveling at 950km/h, here is how long it would take for it to cover the approx 40km (from the moment I spotted it > to the moment it flew over my head):

950km/hour / 60 = 15,833km /minute > hence, in 2,5 minutes it would travel the distance of 15,833km X 2,5 = 39,58km

Pretty close to my "40km" approximation, I might say.


******************

I hope all NASA-fans may now excuse me for believing that the "ISS" is just some airplane circling our planet - at perhaps 10 / 15km of altitude - (or higher, why not?). It may well be a scheme in which several airplanes take turn / i.e. are periodically switched, in order to uphold the ISS myth. Those airplanes may also serve the function of photographing the Earth's surface, thus providing us with those wonderful aerial "Google Earth" images of our planet (which are stupidly credited to satellites supposedly orbiting at enormous altitudes - the geostationary ones stationed at a claimed, whopping 36.000km - that's three times the diameter of planet Earth!). Pardon me, but WHAT OTHERWORDLY TELEPHOTO LENSES WOULD THOSE SATELLITES CARRY??? Any photographer knows that the further you stand from the subject you're shooting, the lower the quality of your photo will be. Can anyone argue with that? I don't think so.

[anonjedi2]

There are several iPhone apps available in the market that will show you which planes are flying overhead. Here's one:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/plane-f ... 77530?mt=8

It would be interesting to see if the ISS shows up in the app.

[anonjedi2]

Simon,

Perhaps we should ask astronut Don Pettit which of these lenses he used to take photos of the Earth from the ISS?



http://petapixel.com/2013/04/10/a-glimp ... e-station/

[Flabbergasted]

There are several iPhone apps available in the market that will show you which planes are flying overhead. Here's one:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/plane-f ... 77530?mt=8

It would be interesting to see if the ISS shows up in the app.

I am told such "plane finder" applications are limited to commercial airliners. For obvious reasons, military aircraft and "special purposes" subcontractor aircraft (of which there seem to be many) are not shown.

[simonshack]

Simon,
Perhaps we should ask astronut Don Pettit which of these lenses he used to take photos of the Earth from the ISS?

Sure, dear Anonjedi.

But perhaps we should ask NASA why they bring up to the ISS this ridiculous amount of photographic gear, and also, why women's tits and torsoes go haywire in microgravity !

[brianv]

There are several iPhone apps available in the market that will show you which planes are flying overhead. Here's one:

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/plane-f ... 77530?mt=8

It would be interesting to see if the ISS shows up in the app.

I am told such "plane finder" applications are limited to commercial airliners. For obvious reasons, military aircraft and "special purposes" subcontractor aircraft (of which there seem to be many) are not shown.

cough cough MH370

[Evil Edna]

....
So let me now postulate that the "ISS" that we can see flying above our homes is nothing but an airplane - cruising at say, 950km/h (the standard cruising / top speed of your average Boeing airliner). A simple calculation related to what I HAVE PERSONALLY VERIFIED WITH MY OWN EYES - yields a result which, lo and behold, would seem to corroborate my working postulation:

If the "ISS" were an airplane traveling at 950km/h, here is how long it would take for it to cover the approx 40km (from the moment I spotted it > to the moment it flew over my head):

950km/hour / 60 = 15,833km /minute > hence, in 2,5 minutes it would travel the distance of 15,833km X 2,5 = 39,58km

Pretty close to my "40km" approximation, I might say.
******************

I hope all NASA-fans may now excuse me for believing that the "ISS" is just some airplane circling our planet - at perhaps 10 or 15km of altitude - or thereabouts. It may well be a scheme in which several airplanes take turn / i.e. are periodically switched, in order to uphold the ISS myth. Those airplanes may also serve the function of photographing the Earth's surface, thus providing us with those wonderful aerial pics of our planet (which are stupidly credited to satellites supposedly orbiting at enormous altitudes - the geostationary ones stationed at a claimed, whopping 36.000km - that's three times the diameter of planet Earth!). Pardon me, but WHAT OTHERWORDLY TELEPHOTO LENSES WOULD THOSE SATELLITES USE??? Any photographer knows that the further you stand from the subject you are shooting, the lower the quality of your photo. Can anyone argue with that?

It's an interesting argument and well framed. But to play devil's advocate, to be true, it has to work both ways.

If 'it' can photograph us in high definition, even from 10,000m, then, in return, we should be able to photograph 'it' back. And in much better detail. With our advantage, here on earth, of fixed camera mounts, much larger lenses and image sensors, and so on.

So if 'it' is flying at just 10,000m shouldn't there be loads of amateur photos showing that? But those photos would expose 'it' as being just another conventional aircraft, and NASA as a bunch of hoaxers. Would the rogue Agency take that risk?

And an aircraft at 10,000m can easily be photographed not just at night, but in daylight too. Witness the plenty photos we have of high altitude commercial airliners in mid-flight.

So, the 'it' - the moving object of light that NASA calls the ISS - must be (a) much farther away - (b) much bigger - and (c) moving much faster - than a conventional aircraft.

Maybe the question of what is 'it', could be tackled from a photonic perspective? How much light energy needs to fall on our retinas before reaching the 'absolute threshold' of vision? How much light - and at what wavelength - is being reflected off 'it'? Or is 'it' generating its own light?

We accept that distant stars - while physically vast like our own sun - and generating furious amounts of thermal energy - are still no more than a tiny twinkling dot in the night sky, being many light years distant.

Yet in terms of reflected(?) light energy - that moving dot which NASA calls the 'ISS' - is no brighter when viewed from earth, than many of those far-away stars. So in theory, they could be roughly the same size and the same distance from our planet!

It begs the question: how have astronomers gauged the distance to any celestial object, even the moon? How was the average lunar distance determined so precisely at 384,403km?? If we turn to Wonkypedia, it tenders the following absurd answer: "High-precision measurements of the lunar distance are made by measuring the time taken for light to travel between LIDAR stations on Earth and retroreflectors placed on the Moon."

Astral wonkers working elsewhere claim to have independently measured the distance to the moon by bouncing radiowaves off it. And then timing the echo, and dividing by the speed of light, etc, etc. Is that really practical? Can radiowaves really be generated at the intensity needed to travel a return journey of over 600,000km, including the absorption losses at the point of reflection on the lunar surface, and when passing (twice) through the ionosphere?

It would seem that even today we have no practical means for establishing the distance (or size) of any celestial object, not even the moon.

Best guess with those thoughts in mind, is that 'it' (the thingy called the 'ISS') is many magnitudes larger in size than claimed by NASA, and magnitudes further away. One of the 'minor planets' - an asteroid, etc., or maybe even several different objects, lumped together by NASA as one, and labelled the 'ISS'.

Where an alarm bell sounds for me is in NASA's inability to track the path of 'it' more than a couple days in advance. Surely if they're guiding the billion-buck thing, its future path should be known long ahead? And if 'it' is just a single Near Earth Object - some sort of asteroid in permanent orbit of our planet - then, once again, surely the parameters of its orbit would have been calculated to some precision by now?

It's a good point of yours that 'it' could be numerous different objects. Not necessarily man-made objects, but vast natural objects - asteroids maybe - which regularly pass in proximity to the earth. And not necessarily objects on an orbital path, though. Objects that just enter our galaxy (if there is such a thing) and hurtle through, passing our earth by thousands/millions of miles.

There being many telescopes trained on the distant sky - it could be that the approach of such an object can be spotted several days before 'it' is visible with the naked eye? Does that explain why NASA can only give the ISS Spotters a couple days notice of its visibility from the earth? That's how far they can see into the distance?

[simonshack]

So if 'it' is flying at just 10,000m shouldn't there be loads of amateur photos showing that? But those photos would expose 'it' as being just another conventional aircraft, and NASA as a bunch of hoaxers. Would the rogue Agency take that risk?

And an aircraft at 10,000m can easily be photographed not just at night, but in daylight too. Witness the plenty photos we have of high altitude commercial airliners in mid-flight.

Dear EE,

Thanks for your many good thoughts and musings. As it is, I have also long played with the thought that the "ISS" may be 'impersonated' by a series of Near Earth Asteroids. Of course, there are countless such objects to be seen at night and, as I have stated before, I remember watching innumerable NE asteroids in the clear Norwegian skies on clear summer nights passing at pretty close intervals (no longer than 10-15 min or so) flying by "among the stars" in all sorts of directions. However, I have two main problems with this hypothesis today:

1: The various "ISS" flybys I have now witnessed have shown an object of consistent brightness / magnitude: it is a fixed, non-flickering light stronger than any star or planet in the sky. In fact, for it to be that elongated "football-field-sized" ISS spaceship (with its 16 tall / flat solar panels) as shown in the NASA pictures digital graphics is the least plausible hypothesis : it makes no optical sense that such a vessel would invariably appear as a bright, non-flickering dot of light (supposedly sunlight being reflected off the solar panels?) - as it travels from one side of the horizon to the other (each time on totally different, East-West / North-South trajectories - more about that later).

2: If the "ISS" were 'impersonated' by a series of NE asteroids, I would think that independent astronomers all around the world would eventually expose NASA as a bunch of hoaxers.

As for your objection that it could not be an airplane ("since amateur photographers would be snapping pictures of it in daylight - thus exposing the hoax"), I frankly cannot see how that would be a problem: there are innumerable airplanes flying in our skies today: how on Earth would anyone be able to prove that what they captured on film was meant to be the ISS - and wasn't just some commercial /or military plane? To be sure, NASA does NOT issue "SPOT THE STATION" alerts for the "ISS" daytime flybys.

So for now, my best hypothesis is that the "ISS" is an airplane, flying high enough to be inaudible, with a strong 'spotlight' on its belly. This 'spotlight' (just speculating now - yet well within plausible modern technological means) might possibly even form a vague "ISS" shape (call it a "holographic projection" if you will, but it could be a simpler "light-display") - so that the few, well-equipped amateur sky-watchers would see something resembling NASA's ISS in their telescopes.


ps: And yes, I can confirm that NASA's "SPOT THE STATION" alerts are always issued either the same day - or the day before at the earliest - of the upcoming "ISS" flybys.

[lux]

For What It's Worth dept:
Some of my random and possibly disjointed musings on this subject of "how do they fake the ISS dot in the sky?"...

The public has been fooled with these glowing dots in the sky for as long as the space program has existed. I remember as a kid “seeing Sputnik” pass overhead in the night sky back in 1957. It was a bright, fast moving star-like object – just like the ISS is said to appear today.

I'm not sure how they do it but my leading suspicion is that it is done with high altitude conventional aircraft. Coincidentally, the first such plane, the Lockheed U-2, was introduced in 1957, the same year as the Sputnik psy-op.

And, the SR-71 Blackbird was introduced in 1966, the year of the first Apollo program launch, the AS-201.

The U2 flies in the 60,000 foot range and the SR-71 at around 90,000 feet. The Blackbird is said to be capable of a top speed of Mach 3 or more.

Evil Edna is correct in saying that it's not difficult to photograph an aircraft from the ground flying at, say, 30,000 feet but one that is at 60 to 90,000 feet? I'd like to see proof of that because I don't think it's possible using equipment normally available to amateurs.

NASA is known to currently use a U-2 variant aircraft known as the ER-2 …

Could it be disguised somehow to appear similar to the alleged form factor of the ISS? I don't know.



… and is it fast enough to fake the ISS's speed? I don't know that either. Top speed of the ER-2 is said to be only around 500 mph so I guess not.

There are other high altitude craft such as the odd looking Burt Rutan designed Proteus …



Perhaps old Burt designed an ISS-lookalike craft specifically for this purpose?

Or, are they using some sort of cruise missile type craft?

NASA has a web site with instructions on how to photograph the ISS so whatever that thing is up there they seem confident that all anybody is going to see is an object that looks something like the ISS.

The upper limit of useful magnification of even the best amateur telescopes is generally considered to be about 300X with 400-500X being possible at times under ideal conditions. You can go higher than this but all you're likely to see is a fuzzy blob. I don't think that's good enough to see much detail of an aircraft that is nearly 17 miles away, much less a football field-sized object that is nearly 250 miles away yet many alleged photos of the ISS do exist.

On the other hand I consider these images about as reliable as the “amateur photographs” of 9/11.

So, how do they do it? Sorry, I don't know but a fast conventional aircraft flying at high altitudes is at the top of my list of suspects.

[brianv]

Did they forget to shop the gadget onto the other wing or is it purposely designed like that? Make large!

[lux]

I don't know. Rutan's designs are strange and not necessarily symmetrical, like this one for example:


http://airplanes-aircraft.knoji.com/the ... urt-rutan/

I guess that's why, when I think of strange looking aircraft that mimic the ISS, I think of Burt Rutan.

[simonshack]

… and is it fast enough to fake the ISS's speed? I don't know that either. Top speed of the ER-2 is said to be only around 500 mph so I guess not.

Dear Lux,

As I tried to expound (perhaps not clearly enough) in my above post regarding my last ISS sighting, the question of the speed of the "ISS" (as visible from the ground) actually supports our shared suspicions that it is nothing but an airplane, traveling at around 950 km/h (or 590mph) at some 'reasonable altitude' (far lower than the 400km altitude claimed for the "ISS"). I agree with you that it would more likely be in the 60 to 90,000 feet range (18,3km - 27,5km) - rather than my "10 to 15km" guesstimate. This, in order to be inaudible from the ground - and almost undetectable with our bare eyes.

The thing is, the speed of the dot I saw flying over my house the other morning would be consistent with an airplane flying at about 950km/h (top / cruising speed of your average large Boeing), since it covered approx 40km (of my skyline view) in 2min30sec. Instead, if we had to believe that this dot is a spaceship speeding at 28,000km/h, it would mean that - the moment I saw it appear on my horizon here in the hills of Rome - that spaceship was 1106 km away, that is roughly over Paris, France!

[Evil Edna]

It would seem an extravagance - for what is just a scam agency - to fly a high altitude plane around - just to simulate what they want us to believe is the ISS.

And if the ISS is just that - a plane - then what are all the other orbiting "satellites" that we can also see with the naked eye?

These are currently the brightest moving "satellites" in the sky - according to this site:

http://www.n2yo.com/satellites/?c=1&srt=4&dir=1

At the moment about 20 are potentially visible (those with apparent magnitude < 4.0):

Can they all be planes? Made to fly around at high altitude? Just to simulate satellites - and other man-made space detritus - in low earth orbit?

Some of those "moving stars" (as they were known in the early 19th century) are supposedly spent rocket bodies launched over forty years ago, still hurtling around.