Fakery in Orbit: THE I$$

[tak47]

NASA claims that they now have HD video cameras on the ISS, streaming live, 24 hours a day. The feed was down when I tried. Shocker.

http://www.iflscience.com/space/eyes-ea ... experiment

tried it several times, always down. but hey, at least there's a webiste claiming it. great marketing NASA.

http://eol.jsc.nasa.gov/HDEV/

it's working right now. impressive view. (or should i say impressive CGI?)

[ElSushi]

Impressive CGI indeed...looks like they're getting better at simulating the " Sun " moving reflections on their super portable webcam.

[HonestlyNow]

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"The International Space Station is a hoax faked with tricks that simulate zero gravity." Recently uploaded.


full link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mt_qySI10VI

[scud]

Very much enjoyed that HN...thanks for posting. Looking forward to part 2 which he says should be up in a week or so.

[simonshack]

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Dear HonestlyNow,

Thanks for linking to that excellent video by "ScienceFrontier". It is very encouraging to see that other people - beyond this forum - are waking up to the Great Space Scam. We are getting there... step by step, slowly but surely ! Yay - I feel almost weightless in joy!

Seriously now: we now need to rip these cosmic lies to shreds. Humanity has to tear down the NASA circus - or else we (the people) must all consider ourselves as a bunch of domesticated chimps in their captivity. We'd all go bananas. Have we already? Nah - I don't think so.

[Starbucked]

This video purports to show the SpaceX Dragon in orbit, 25 minutes after launch, on its way to catch up to the ISS!

http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronom ... gault.html


full link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdS8isz_Ujw

This image, taken from the video, shows stars, trees and the Dragon (marked with an arrow) at a distance of over 1000 km away, I'll presume. Bad astronomy indeed

[Pilgrim]

So the World cup action even reaches the ISS.
It's a good job those guys packed their football shirts or had the shuttle bring them or that perhaps Sims can make their own.
Can someone with more experience check this out for me please?

@ 21 seconds the guy on the left with his sudden shirt morph.
@ 33 seconds the seemingly still photo of the mission control center with some slight movements of only two guys center top.
And after that the strange movements of a random robotic arm and single cushioning bag (i presume) into the next module behind them in the speeded up section.
Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XHo6Q8gTXw


full link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XHo6Q8gTXw

[simonshack]

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WHAT COULD THE "I$$" BE?

I have been giving this question some more thought lately. I know, the following may slightly contradict some of my earlier ISS musings here, but I'm sure you will appreciate that this isn't an easy issue to wrap one's head around. For the sake of (reasoned / no-nonsense / reality-checked) discussion, let me just postulate that the "I$$" is perhaps nothing but a solar-powered drone, somewhat similar to this "SOLAR EAGLE 650" - which DARPA claims to be "under development". Of course, this would mean that it travels at far, far lower speeds and altitudes (than the 28.000 km/h - and 400 km of altitude) claimed for the ISS - and at CONSTANTLY DIVERSE / FLUCTUATING altitudes and paths. In order to support this contention, I will submit a few simple calculations based on my own observations of the alleged "International Space Station" - as it passes above my house in Frascati, on the outskirts of Rome (I have now been able to witness more than a dozen, cloudless fly-overs in the last year or so, having subscribed to NASA's "Spot the Station e-mail alert service").

"One of the largest solar powered drones, known as ‘SolarEagle 650’ is under development at Boeing Phantom Works, under DARPA’s $89 million Vulture II program." http://defense-update.com/20130813_sola ... lites.html


The Odysseus drone (by Boeing) :

"Powered only by the sun, Odysseus is an ultra-long endurance, high-altitude platform built for groundbreaking persistence. Utilizing advanced solar cells and built with lightweight materials, Odysseus can effectively fly indefinitely – all powered by clean, renewable energy."

To be sure, smaller such solar-drones (like the 'HALE'), capable of staying aloft for several years, may well already exist:

"This ultra high-altitude, long-endurance (HALE) platform would have been capable of flying missions lasting between three months to five years. According to DARPA’s original plan, this drone’s 400-foot span wings would carry solar panel arrays that will be able to sustain the drone aloft in the stratosphere for at least five years. The solar-electric-powered aircraft was designed to cruise at altitudes above 60,000 feet at a speed of 70 to 80 knots while performing communications, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions."

Now, the "ISS" that I have seen on several occasions invariably appears as a bright, fixed (i.e. non-flashing - unlike commercial airplanes' navigation lights) white/yellowish light traveling across my skyline (always on varying paths). To be sure, it could be easily be mistaken (by a casual onlooker) for an airplane flying at roughly standard cruise altitude - albeit at seemingly slower speed than commercial airplanes. But as we will see, the issue of apparent speed of the "ISS" is quite a mystery / head-scratcher in itself. For instance, back in December 28, 2013, it took all of 6 minutes for the ISS to cross my skyline, from NorthWest to EastSouthEast. Here's NASA's own description of that passage over Rome - as announced by their "Spot the Station" alert that I received in my e-mail inbox earlier that day:

Time: Sat Dec 28 5:26 PM, Visible: 6 min, Max Height: 74 degrees, Appears: NW, Disappears: ESE

So let's see: IF the "ISS" is nothing but a solar-powered drone traveling at a leisurely 80 knots (150km/h), would this make any sense - if we try and compute this - as seen from my visual perspective, from my house in Frascati? Well, indeed it does. A simple calculation tells us that, if the "Thing" travels at 150km/h, it will cover 15 km in 6 minutes. Now, in this Google Map illustration, here's what x-------15km-------> 'means to me', as a visual observer from my vantage point. (Please know that I can only just see, on a clear night, the navigation lights of commercial planes as they come in from North/ North-West to land in Ciampino airport. Also, please know that the village of Rocca Priora is just beyond my line of sight):



Instead, NASA wants me to believe that, when I observe the "ISS" flying over my house (at a minimum distance of about 400km - as it passes right overhead !), I am actually witnessing with my own eyes the "Thing's" voyage between Paris (France) and Alexandria (Egypt):

http://www.worldatlas.com/travelaids/fl ... stance.htm

In fact, the "ISS" is claimed to be traveling / orbiting at a speed of 28.000 km/h, which means that it would cover about 2800 km in 6 minutes. All this without any need for fuel or any such mundane / earthly amenities - because the "thing" was launched fast enough out in space back in 1998. The "ISS", we are told, just continues flying at hypersonic speeds around our 12000km-diameter-Earth (at about 400km of altitude), day after day after day...

"The International Space Station (ISS) is a space station, or a habitable artificial satellite, in low Earth orbit. It is a modular structure whose first component was launched in 1998. Now the largest artificial body in orbit, it can often be seen at the appropriate time with the naked eye from Earth. (...) The ISS maintains an orbit with an altitude of between 330 km and 435 km by means of reboost manoeuvres using the engines of the Zvezda module or visiting spacecraft. It completes 15.51 orbits per day." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internatio ... ce_Station


Now, for those who may be interested in the "Thing's" bizarre 'orbit paths' - and speeds - here's the list of the "ISS" passages over Rome - in 2014:

SPOT THE STATION:

2014
Time: Mon Aug 18 9:47 PM, Visible: 2 min, Max Height: 50 degrees, Appears: NW, Disappears: ENE
Time: Thu Aug 07 8:59 PM, Visible: 6 min, Max Height: 56 degrees, Appears: WSW, Disappears: NE
Time: Tue Aug 05 9:01 PM, Visible: 6 min, Max Height: 54 degrees, Appears: SW, Disappears: ENE
Time: Mon Aug 04 9:49 PM, Visible: 6 min, Max Height: 83 degrees, Appears: WSW, Disappears: NE
Time: Mon Aug 04 3:32 AM, Visible: 5 min, Max Height: 46 degrees, Appears: NNW, Disappears: ESE
Time: Sun Aug 03 10:38 PM, Visible: 6 min, Max Height: 50 degrees, Appears: WSW, Disappears: NE
Time: Sun Aug 03 4:19 AM, Visible: 6 min, Max Height: 75 degrees, Appears: NW, Disappears: ESE
Time: Sat Aug 02 5:08 AM, Visible: 6 min, Max Height: 62 degrees, Appears: WNW, Disappears: SE
Time: Mon Jul 21 3:37 AM, Visible: 2 min, Max Height: 85 degrees, Appears: ESE, Disappears: ENE
Time: Sun Jul 20 4:24 AM, Visible: 3 min, Max Height: 57 degrees, Appears: WSW, Disappears: NNE
Time: Fri Jul 18 4:25 AM, Visible: 3 min, Max Height: 52 degrees, Appears: SSW, Disappears: ENE
Time: Thu Jul 17 5:11 AM, Visible: 4 min, Max Height: 87 degrees, Appears: SW, Disappears: NE
Time: Sat Jun 21 9:33 PM, Visible: 4 min, Max Height: 61 degrees, Appears: WNW, Disappears: SE
Time: Thu Jun 19 9:35 PM, Visible: 4 min, Max Height: 51 degrees, Appears: NNW, Disappears: ESE
Time: Wed Jun 18 10:23 PM, Visible: 3 min, Max Height: 86 degrees, Appears: NW, Disappears: ESE
Time: Tue Jun 17 11:11 PM, Visible: 3 min, Max Height: 51 degrees, Appears: WNW, Disappears: WSW
Time: Sun Jun 15 11:14 PM, Visible: 2 min, Max Height: 57 degrees, Appears: NW, Disappears: ENE
Time: Sat Jun 07 3:19 AM, Visible: 4 min, Max Height: 64 degrees, Appears: WNW, Disappears: SSE
Time: Thu Jun 05 9:39 PM, Visible: 6 min, Max Height: 78 degrees, Appears: WSW, Disappears: NE
Time: Thu Jun 05 3:21 AM, Visible: 6 min, Max Height: 49 degrees, Appears: NW, Disappears: ESE
Time: Wed Jun 04 10:28 PM, Visible: 6 min, Max Height: 47 degrees, Appears: WSW, Disappears: NE
Time: Wed Jun 04 4:09 AM, Visible: 6 min, Max Height: 81 degrees, Appears: NW, Disappears: ESE
Time: Tue Jun 03 4:58 AM, Visible: 6 min, Max Height: 57 degrees, Appears: WNW, Disappears: SE
Time: Mon Jun 02 10:29 PM, Visible: 6 min, Max Height: 67 degrees, Appears: SW, Disappears: ENE
Time: Sun Jun 01 4:59 AM, Visible: 6 min, Max Height: 54 degrees, Appears: NW, Disappears: ESE
Time: Sun May 25 2:40 AM, Visible: 1 min, Max Height: 43 degrees, Appears: NNE, Disappears: NE
Time: Thu May 22 3:29 AM, Visible: 2 min, Max Height: 85 degrees, Appears: NNE, Disappears: NE
Time: Wed May 21 4:16 AM, Visible: 3 min, Max Height: 51 degrees, Appears: W, Disappears: NNE
Time: Mon May 19 4:17 AM, Visible: 3 min, Max Height: 60 degrees, Appears: SSW, Disappears: ENE
Time: Sun May 18 5:04 AM, Visible: 4 min, Max Height: 77 degrees, Appears: WSW, Disappears: NE
Time: Wed Apr 23 8:29 PM, Visible: 4 min, Max Height: 75 degrees, Appears: NW, Disappears: ESE
Time: Tue Apr 22 9:18 PM, Visible: 3 min, Max Height: 63 degrees, Appears: WNW, Disappears: SSE
Time: Sun Apr 20 9:18 PM, Visible: 3 min, Max Height: 49 degrees, Appears: NNW, Disappears: E
Time: Sat Apr 19 10:06 PM, Visible: 1 min, Max Height: 55 degrees, Appears: NW, Disappears: NW
Time: Wed Apr 09 8:27 PM, Visible: 6 min, Max Height: 61 degrees, Appears: WSW, Disappears: NE
Time: Mon Apr 07 8:28 PM, Visible: 6 min, Max Height: 48 degrees, Appears: SW, Disappears: ENE
Time: Sun Apr 06 9:17 PM, Visible: 4 min, Max Height: 87 degrees, Appears: SW, Disappears: ENE
Time: Wed Apr 02 4:41 AM, Visible: 3 min, Max Height: 42 degrees, Appears: ENE, Disappears: ESE
Time: Tue Apr 01 5:27 AM, Visible: 5 min, Max Height: 77 degrees, Appears: NW, Disappears: ESE *
Time: Mon Mar 31 6:15 AM, Visible: 6 min, Max Height: 61 degrees, Appears: WNW, Disappears: SE
Time: Sat Mar 29 5:16 AM, Visible: 4 min, Max Height: 51 degrees, Appears: NW, Disappears: ENE
Time: Tue Mar 18 4:39 AM, Visible: 2 min, Max Height: 50 degrees, Appears: NNW, Disappears: NE
Time: Sun Mar 16 4:40 AM, Visible: 2 min, Max Height: 63 degrees, Appears: SSE, Disappears: ENE
Time: Sat Mar 15 5:27 AM, Visible: 5 min, Max Height: 74 degrees, Appears: WSW, Disappears: NE
Time: Thu Mar 13 5:28 AM, Visible: 4 min, Max Height: 40 degrees, Appears: SSW, Disappears: ESE
Time: Tue Feb 25 6:43 PM, Visible: 4 min, Max Height: 48 degrees, Appears: W, Disappears: SE
Time: Sun Feb 23 6:42 PM, Visible: 6 min, Max Height: 62 degrees, Appears: NW, Disappears: ESE
Time: Sat Feb 22 7:32 PM, Visible: 2 min, Max Height: 76 degrees, Appears: WNW, Disappears: SSW
Time: Mon Feb 10 5:59 PM, Visible: 5 min, Max Height: 70 degrees, Appears: SW, Disappears: ENE
Time: Tue Jan 28 5:21 AM, Visible: 1 min, Max Height: 48 degrees, Appears: E, Disappears: ESE
Time: Mon Jan 27 6:07 AM, Visible: 4 min, Max Height: 71 degrees, Appears: WNW, Disappears: SE
Time: Sun Jan 26 6:53 AM, Visible: 6 min, Max Height: 40 degrees, Appears: WNW, Disappears: SSE
Time: Sat Jan 25 6:07 AM, Visible: 3 min, Max Height: 44 degrees, Appears: NNW, Disappears: E
Time: Fri Jan 24 6:53 AM, Visible: 4 min, Max Height: 71 degrees, Appears: NW, Disappears: ESE
Time: Mon Jan 13 6:06 AM, Visible: 4 min, Max Height: 43 degrees, Appears: WNW, Disappears: NE

Just ask yourself this question: WHY would the ISS at times be visible (from my vantage point in Rome) for 1 minute only - and at other times for as many as 6 minutes - if the "Thing" is constantly orbiting at about 330 / 410km of altitude, as claimed by NASA ?

For now, I will leave it up to you, dear reader - to reach your own conclusions. However - and as a first mind exercise, if you live on a hillside overlooking a big city (like myself), try and look out of your window and observe the spotlights of a distant football stadium (or the like), perhaps 20km away. Imagine now these lights being twenty times (20kmX20=400km) further away. Do you think you would be able to see them?

[lux]

I've thought about this question a lot myself and I keep coming back to the same explanation as you've given here, Simon. I think this is what it is too.

The general outline of the fictional ISS also happens to be quite similar to that of a conventional aircraft making it relatively easy to mimic the "space station" with one of these solar powered craft.

And, since there's no way to measure altitude of an object of unknown size with a telescope, it presents a perfect illusion for any amateur astronomer who happens to catch the "ISS" with his scope. They just scale the size of the thing to match what it would appear to be if it were the ISS with its alleged dimensions at its alleged altitude.

[Pilgrim]

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Just ask yourself this question: WHY would the ISS at times be visible (from my vantage point in Rome) for 1 minute only - and at other times for as many as 6 minutes - if the "Thing" is constantly orbiting at about 330 / 410km of altitude, as claimed by NASA ?

For now, I will leave it up to you, dear reader - to reach your own conclusions. However - and as a first mind exercise, if you live on a hillside overlooking a big city (like myself), try and look out of your window and observe the spotlights of a distant football stadium (or the like), perhaps 20km away. Imagine now these lights being twenty times (20kmX20=400km) further away. Do you think you would be able to see them?

The first thing i thought of was a correlation between the time it was visible and the angle of orbit, the closer to 90 degrees (right overhead) it was, then you would expect it to be in sky longer as it would have more sky to cover from your perspective. But given the Data you supply, this does not seem to be the case.

[simonshack]

The first thing i thought of was a correlation between the time it was visible and the angle of orbit, the closer to 90 degrees (right overhead) it was, then you would expect it to be in sky longer as it would have more sky to cover from your perspective. But given the Data you supply, this does not seem to be the case.

Indeed, dear Pilgrim

Let me now try and illustrate in the simplest possible manner what my point is - regarding the visibility of the "ISS" as it passes over my head.

Now, remember: NASA claims that their "ISS" travels at 28.000km/h. This means that, in 6 minutes, it will cover 2800km (the distance between Paris and Alexandria).

Agreed?

Well, this means that - as I watch the "ISS" flying over my house (as I have indeed witnessed on several occasions), it will be about 1500km away from my eyes as it appears - and disappears. In fact, what I wrote in my above post ("try imagining to be able to see the spotlights of a football stadium 400km away") was actually a quite conservative statement. What I really should have asked was: try imagining being able to see the spotlights of a football stadium 1500km away!



I trust that this puts the absurdity of NASA's outlandish and surreal claims into their proper perspective.

The "ISS" is a silly hoax. They have something else - a "visual decoy" of some sort - flying up there.

[Starbucked]

I've never bothered looking, but does the ISS appear larger and brighter at 400 km than 1500 km?

Is the ISS lit up by the sun or does it carry flood lights?

If it passes directly overhead at night, can ISS still be seen in the shadow cast upon it by Earth?

[Pilgrim]

If it passes directly overhead at night, can ISS still be seen in the shadow cast upon it by Earth?

According to Pop Science (not that I am a true believer in that) the Earths shadow cone extends to 1.4 million KM of which 400 KM is only a fraction so assuming a close to 90 degree flyover (or any degree flyover for that matter) it would not be visible for most of the night. Only perhaps early evening just after dark and early morning just before daylight at best and depending on it's position to the observer. The lower the maximum angle is should increase the time into the night or before morning you should be able to see it by their own Physics but not enough to make much of a difference An hour or two depending at best? as it's still only a paltry 400 km away in height so i am as still confused by NASA data.
Edited for clarity.

[Evil Edna]

In the pursuit of science, I took a hike last night, up the highest nearby peak, about 30 miles outside Birmingham, UK, where an unfettered panoramic view of the night sky is afforded, unimpeded by city lights. Armed with a directional compass, and a cell-phone running "sat-track", the Android app, I lay on a yoga mat (a use at last for it!) observing the many illuminated dots ("man-made satellites" etc.) beatling across the clear night sky. (Screenshots of the "sat-track" app, below)



Between the hours of (roughly) 2am and 4am, about ten out of the fifty or so "satellites" and other supposed objects of "space junk" which the Android app helpfully listed as observable were spotted. Those objects were travelling along paths just as "sat-track" had indicated. Several of those objects were supposedly spent "rocket bodies" (R/B) still stuck up there in orbit, pointlessly hurtling round the earth, decades after their alleged launch, while one object was apparently a US "spy satellite", its purpose "classified"!

After performing this (very chilly) exercise, what remains problematic with the I$$ Decoy Theory is that it doesn't explain those many other moving objects of light clearly visible in the night sky. Even if we suppose that the I$$ is indeed a man-made high-altitude aircraft of some sort, being used as a decoy, what of all those other moving lights? They can't all be decoys. On any one night there are probably just a handful of amateurs observing these mysterious moving objects. Would NA$A et. al really bother with the expense of flying dozens of decoys just to persuade those very few observers of their celestial activities? So if those other dots aren't decoys, what could they be? That seems to be a matter of even greater intrigue.

As a side observation, these "moving-dots-in-the-sky", in common with all other celestial objects, have individual magnitudes of light. Counter-intuitively, the lower the magnitude, the brighter the light; so a -3.0 magnitude object is brighter than a -1.5 which is brighter than 0.5 which is brighter than 3.0.

According to wikipedia, we should be able to see celestial objects with light magnitudes less than 7.0. Maybe my eyesight is poor, or maybe it wasn't a particularly dark night, but I couldn't see any "satellite" (or "orbiting space junk") with a magnitude greater than 4.0. And even some objects with quite low magnitude values (as low as 1.9) were still, for some reason, not visible to me. Maybe there, in itself, is an answer. If the "satellite" tracking experts can't even predict with much accuracy the magnitude of these illuminated moving objects, then perhaps their paths and their relative distances from earth also cannot be predicted with any real precision.

In an earlier discussion, it was mooted that these things we're told are "man-made satellites" are not man-made at all (and that's my hunch, too) but have been hurtling around space since time immemorial. However none of the 19th century astronomical publications appear to make any mention of these moving lights in the sky. Yet by contrast "shooting stars", "falling stars" and "meteorites" are clearly noted in much of the same literature. So can that absence of mention by the pioneers of astronomy really have been through lack of observation? Or maybe (for some reason) there was a conspiracy of silence to keep their existence an undocumented secret? And then, only in the last 50+ years have these mysterious lights been falsely attributed to the phony activities - the "rockets" and the "satellites" - of the vapourware "space industry"?!

EDIT: Just tried another mobile app for tracking "satellites" (including the "I$$"). It's from heavens-above.com. It seems a bit better as it super-imposes the "satellite" paths onto a constellation map, to aid orientation:

[simonshack]

Even if we suppose that the I$$ is indeed a man-made high-altitude aircraft of some sort, being used as a decoy, what of all those other moving lights? They can't all be decoys.

Have you already forgotten about NEA's (Near-Earth Asteroids)? They have been there since the dawn of times. : http://cluesforum.info/viewtopic.php?p=2389787#p2389787

And no, they look nothing like the "ISS" - and the difference is huge, undeniable - and well-familiar to any longtime skygazer :

To put it simply, NEA's look like distant, moving stars - whereas the "ISS" looks like a 'standard-altitude', cruising airplane - and could easily be mistaken for a commercial airplane at first sight - by any casual observer. It clearly flies far, far lower than your average Near-Earth-Asteroid.

However poorly our naked eyes can judge/ estimate/ perceive the apparent altitude of a celestial object, the stark / dramatic visual difference between a NEA flyover and an "ISS" flyover is evident to any (sincere) observer. But of course, to try and describe in words such differences is probably impossible. You have to be observing it for yourself.

Were you able to witness an "ISS" flyover while sky-gazing in the Birmingham heights - and compare it to the innumerable NEA's ?