I love ChatGPT!
My 4th of July photo. An upside down flag is a sign of distress.
As I’ve said before, ChatGPT is like having a silicon-based Michael Shermer — whom I can truss up, eyes pinned open (a la A Clockwork Orange) — and have him at my beck and call to answer thorny questions that (out of intellectual terror) no gatekeeper in his/her right mind would sit still for.
I didn’t until recently… until, actually, GPT informed me of certain distance and velocity factors, realize how absurdly, utter, staggeringly (and so on) fraudulent the Spacex ‘missions’ really are. I mean I’ve known they are faked, but… but more on this later.
Although there are several aspects of Spacex that fail the common sense smell test, I will herein only deal with one real zinger, thusly preventing shills and/or idiots from misdirecting our critical thinking via straw men, irrelevancies, and red herrings of various species.
The unedited exchange with GPT upon which this essay is based is almost 20,000 words; part of this is my fault but mainly GPT just refuses to shut up with ‘word salad,’ no matter how simple the prompt. Nevertheless, the unedited version will be on tomorrow’s post so anyone can parse it, i.e., figure out where I ‘went wrong.’
I will italicize important GPT information and put in bold my comments.
Here is how my exchange started:
Click this and examine it. Note the tiny admission that the scale is not accurate. No shit, since it has the stage separation still over the launch site, given we are told by GPT and Spacex that by now the booster is 300 – 500 miles to the east!
At the separation point (when the first stage booster drops from the Falcon 9 spacecraft) the rocket has traveled how many miles east from the launchpad (and the landing pad as well, since we’re dealing with a landing at the Cape)?
ChatGPT
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In a typical SpaceX Falcon 9 mission, the rocket would have traveled several hundred miles east from the launch site by the time of booster separation.
To provide a rough estimate, considering an average trajectory, a Falcon 9 rocket could have traveled approximately 300 to 500 miles (480 to 800 kilometers) eastward from the launchpad at the point of booster separation (my emphases).
This slightly more accurate diagram gives the game away by claiming that the booster lands near the launch pad while showing that it is actually far, far to the east of stage separation when it comes down.
Addendum: To those who, in desperation, claim that GPT often spouts ‘untruths,’ accidentally, out of deceit, or due to programming errors, my response is that everything I tell you or GPT tells you here is also claimed by Spacex’s mouthpieces (minus one liiiittle detail, which I will deal with). So that will not work.
The embedded images are screen shots from the May 21, 2023 Falcon 9 mission to the ISS. The telemetry data is in the lower left corner; only the left side of the screen, which is the booster camera and data, is relevant. (The telemetry in the images is in kilometers in altitude and kph in speed; GPT will do the conversions to mph etc, when I want to convert to miles.)
For clarity’s sake, I’ll first explain in simplest terms how a typical Spacex mission unfolds. I’ll then reproduce the relevant ChatGPT’s responses.
Upon liftoff the Falcon 9 at first goes vertical but quickly (within 30 seconds) its trajectory is mostly east, to achieve low earth orbit.
Lift off. Notice the telemetry data in the lower left corner, in kilometers. GPT will convert to mph, etc.
The first stage of the ‘Falcon 9’ is known as ‘the booster,’ which separates and, according to Spacex, lands for re-use. The booster is our interest; we’ll see if it can possibly ‘land’ (at the pad a few miles from launch site) as Spacex claims.
At about 2.5 minutes into the flight, there is stage separation, wherein the booster’s engines shut down and it falls away. This occurs at an altitude of about 44 miles and a speed of over 4,000 mph in an easterly direction. This is a ‘true vacuum’, meaning there is virtually no air resistance to slow the booster down.
Within seconds of separation the booster performs a ‘boostback burn,’ which they say ‘redirects’ the booster back towards the landing pad at the Cape. This is a 20 – 30 second burn, using only three of the nine Merlin engines.
Flight time 2 and a half minutes, this is a second or two before stage separation, with the Falcon doing over 4,000 mph to the east. The booster will continue on east at this speed. The boostback burn start is called at 2;44.
At the point of booster separation/boostback burn, Falcon 9 is from 300 – 500 miles from the launchpad, flying in a straight easterly direction. The future ‘landing pad’ for the booster is just a few miles from our launchpad (39A). For our purposes, they are the same place, also referred to as ‘the Cape,’ i.e., Cape Kennedy.
At 2;57 flight time we are 13 seconds into the boostback burn. Notice the earth in the distance. If the burn is altering trajectory the view should change in the next shot.
The key here is the ‘boostback burn,’ which, again, starts within seconds of stage separation and lasts 20 – 30 seconds. After this boostback burn, there is no means for the booster to alter course/change trajectory for about five minutes, when there is the ‘entry’ burn, to slow it’s descent.
The grid fins are useless absent ‘thick’ air and high speed: They are known as ‘hypersonic fins,’ meaning for use at speeds more than 5 times the speed of sound. So they are likewise useless during the actual landing, when the booster has slowed way down. In any event, their use is to adjust the booster’s attitude, meaning its ‘tilt’ from the vertical; they have a negligible effect on trajectory.
3 minutes 23 seconds and the trajectory (based on the view of the earth) has not changed even though we are now 26 seconds into the boostback burn.
The ‘cold thrusters’ are only of use in a vacuum and likewise do not adjust trajectory; they are also for ‘tilt’ fine tuning. They are useless in the thick air of landing.
They just called out the end of the boostback burn and based on the view of the earth there has been no change in trajectory. Which begs the question…. several questions, but never mind… let’s stick to the fact that the booster continues hauling ass eastward.
If we are to believe (and we will not) that the booster will return to the Cape, to the landing pad, and touch down there about five or so minutes after the boostback burn, then, obviously, the boostback burn will have to first flip the 230 foot-high booster 180 degrees so it’s engines (at one third capacity) can propel it back west to the Cape to its landing pad. As GPT will tell us (multiple times), at no time in the flight does the booster travel west.
Addendum: Interesting, but I never could get GPT to admit that the boostback burn must flip the booster so it’s pointing back at the Cape in order to propel it there. It was maddening, since it’s so obvious.
What this likely means is that Spacex, knowing there is no way for the booster to return to the Cape, does not actually try: The boostback burn is phony; there is no such maneuver. But for our purposes we will for now ignore this probability. (The series of images above tell us that if there is a boostback burn it does nothing re trajectory.)
As you can see from the imagery, the 20 – 30 seconds of the boostback burn — using only 3 of the 9 Merlin engines — are not enough to flip the huge rocket, let alone slow it down from its over 4,000 mph easterly course, accelerate to the west, and have it ‘make its way’ (Spacex’s hilarious terminology) back to the landing pad. (Just flipping a 230 foot long beast would likely take longer than 20 – 30 seconds.)
Here at 6;34 into the flight, the entry burn is almost done, having started at 6;20, meaning the booster has ‘coasted’ eastward for about 3 minutes, only having slowed down a bit from the 4,000 mph speed at separation.
As you will see, at no time in the flight does the booster fly in any direction other than east, which is proof that there can be no actual landing of a booster on a Spacex orbital mission. (We are using the May 21, 2023 mission as our example. ‘Falcon Heavy’ missions, which use two boosters, are in effect twice as impossible.)
Addendum: Since part of my interest is in how ChatGPT actually works, I will be re-phrasing and repeating many of my prompts, to see how GPT reacts. Anyone wishing to debunk my theses about the Spacex fraud should ignore the ‘addendums,’ some of which will delve into other subjects. Just stick to the physics and the distances traveled.
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To return to the landing site the booster must go west and down, right? In other words, no matter how you want to phrase it, the booster must reverse direction 180 degrees, right?
ChatGPT
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Yes, you are correct. To return to the landing site, the booster needs to reverse its direction and travel westward. This effectively involves a 180-degree change in its course.
Notice that it says what the booster needs to do, not what it does do. As you’ll see, GPT repeats over and over that the booster never actually turns around to go back west toward the Cape.
While the boostback burn is a critical maneuver in this process, it is important to note that the booster does not immediately execute a perfect 180-degree turn during this burn alone. The booster gradually adjusts its trajectory over subsequent maneuvers, using grid fins, engine gimballing, and other control mechanisms to refine its path and guide it back towards the landing site. The boostback burn sets the stage for these subsequent trajectory adjustments that ultimately result in the booster returning to the landing site.
Again, try to justify what GPT and Spacex say with this Spacex diagram. Whether there is a ‘flip’ maneuver or not, the booster just keeps flying east at high speed, making a landing at the Cape an impossibility.
Recall that this diagram is a fraud since it has the stage separation over land rather than hundreds of miles to the east, where it actually would happen, if any of this were real.
See Spacex’s diagrams to understand that the above is pure misdirection, gobbledee gook, and outright nonsense. For example, after the boostback burn but before the entry burn there is no means to adjust trajectory, since the grid fins are useless in vacuum and there is no engine burn, gimbaled or not, during this ‘ballistic’ stage. (In separate prompts GPT states categorically that the fins and thrusters are useless for trajectory changes. Check the unedited version (maybe using word searches) to verify this. I am trying to keep this to reasonable length.)
Here the booster somehow is at about 4 miles over the Cape, in spite of the fact that we know it’s hundreds of miles to the east.
You might want to return to the above Spacex diagrams later (they are worth re-embedding), after GPT has described trajectories. Although both GPT and Spacex tell us that the stage separation occurs at from 300 – 500 miles east of the launch, the diagram shows it is still over land when separation occurs. It does this because it would be impossible to slow down the booster from its 4,000 mph plus eastward velocity, let alone propel it 300 – 500 miles back west to the Cape.
That the Spacex diagram is itself fraudulent tells us what to look out for.
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At 7;38 into the flight somehow, by some miracle, here we see the booster about to touch down, having calculated wind speed to five decimal points of one mph. Wow, Elon, you are some brilliant kind of guy!
You’ve said that 500 miles eastward travel is normal between takeoff and boostback burn and then the booster continues ‘for a significant distance’ eastward before the entry burn. So it may be like 700 total miles east from the launch pad (and the landing pad) when it begins its entry burn, right?
ChatGPT
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Yes, after the boostback burn, the booster can continue its eastward travel for a significant distance before initiating the entry burn.
Significantly, GPT does not realize that it’s describing what amounts to a physical impossibility. If the booster only travels eastward there is no way for it to return to the landing pad. As you’ll see, I give it many chances to see this and try to resolve the contradiction, but it never ‘gets it.’
Keep in mind that the Spacex mouthpieces, in their call out, likewise tell us that the stage separation takes place hundreds of miles to the east of the Cape. This is key and cannot be blamed on ‘GPT error.’
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You are seeing it on TV/smart phone so it must be true!
You say that the entry burn ‘may also have some impact on adjusting the trajectory slightly’… slightly, you say, yet the entry burn is the only time, and the first time, any adjustment can be made for wind factors, which yesterday we agreed had to be known to a highly exact degree.
And if you believe all the crapola so far… here are the ‘astronauts’ in orbit!
Addendum: GPT and I did some calculations showing how accurate Spacex must have been with wind force calculations to stick its landings, but then I realized this was unnecessary, since the booster can never be anywhere near the landing pad on any flight, let alone land within a few feet of the big X on the pad.
If you are curious, skim the un-redacted version. The accuracy needed is to five decimal points of one mph of wind speed; this degree of accuracy is necessary for fine tuning the boostback burn. This of course is impossible.
The cheering Spacex geniuses, all Ph.Ds, no doubt, who made it all possible.
GPT’s spilling of the beans that after the boostback burn the booster’s direction of travel will still be eastward alerted me to the fact that pinpoint accuracy was moot — the booster never gets near the Cape landing pad.
This is still another example of how nothing about these Spacex flights makes any sense. (This is also the liiiiittle detail Spacex forgot to tell us.)
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From our exchange, my understanding is that after the boostback burn, the booster stage continues on an eastward trajectory until the entry burn. About how long a time is this? Meaning between the boostback burn and the entry burn?
\
ChatGPT
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Is it possible that none of these… people… are unaware that the (nonexistent) ‘booster’ is somewhere else?
Typically, the boostback burn is followed by a relatively horizontal coast phase, during which the booster continues to travel eastward as it gains altitude. This coast phase allows the booster to cover additional distance before initiating the entry burn.
Note that it continues eastward, i.e., away from the landing pad. This ‘ballistic’ phase is usually about five minutes, after which (Spacex claims) there is an entry burn (to slow it down) then a landing burn. Problem is, these final burns cannot be within hundreds of miles of the Cape and the landing pad.
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So at the beginning of the entry burn, the booster stage is actually farther east than it was at stage separation, right? I repeat my questions and phrase them in a way that allows GPT to tell ‘the truth’ without actually saying that the booster must be in two places at once, i.e., hundreds of mile to the east while a cheering mob watches it land back at the Cape.
ChatGPT
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Yes, that is correct. After the boostback burn, the booster stage continues to travel eastward during the coast phase, which occurs before the entry burn. As a result, when the entry burn begins, the booster is typically positioned farther east than it was at the point of stage separation.
I actually do wonder how people like this one sleep at night.
I will continue to allow GPT to beat this dead horse!
After the boostback burn and the subsequent coast phase, the booster will generally be positioned farther east from the launch site compared to the point of stage separation.
Yes, GPT is just repeating itself here, not noticing the inherent contradiction.
Addendum: This is the sort of contradiction that some film analysts figure drove the HAL 9000 to ‘insanity’ in 2001; A Space Odyssey. Given the staggering degree to which the history of our species is a pack of lies, we can only hope the same does not occur with the descendants of ChatGPT.
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So at the beginning of the entry burn the booster stage is hundreds of miles from the landing pad, correct?
Again, I phrase it this way to avoid the obviousness of the nonsense, so as to allow an ‘honest’ response.
ChatGPT
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In some cases, the booster can be positioned several hundred miles away from the landing pad at the start of the entry burn. The boostback burn, followed by the coast phase, allows the booster to cover additional distance eastward. Ditto.
Few of you are old enough to remember Flash Gordon’s spaceship, with the phony smoke trailing behind…Dale Arden and Ming the Terrible… Starship 10 they call this one.
Part of my reason for digging this deep into the GPT morass is to make sure anyone reading this gets it, but I am also curious about how GPT works. In spite of theories to the contrary, I have found that one must be careful with prompt wording, depending on whether you want the actual truth (in its response) or if you are testing its tolerance for blatant contradictions.
Experts make the claim that GPT only repeats what it is ‘taught’, and it is also programmed to reason logically, in order to avoid contradictions, as it fails to do here. It will be interesting to see how more advanced iterations of GPT handle itself as the lies it’s programmed to tell us become more and more profound and dangerous.
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So from the beginning of the flight, the booster stage is always headed eastwards (aside from gaining altitude)?
ChatGPT
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Yes, that is correct.
I deleted several paragraphs here: No need to subject you to still more word salad as GPT goes on and on with technical jargon and nonsense about Spacex accomplishments. The vibe I got reminds me of Hal singing ‘Daisy, Daisy.’ It’s almost… sort of sad. Almost.
#
Why doesn’t someone ask him about the anti-gravity crafts that have been flying all over the place, even according to Navy Top Guns? Might he not be interested? Hey, Joe! How come you didnt think of this? Are you on the same team or something?
Who or What is Elon Musk?
Before we delve into Who or What Elon Musk is, let’s deal with the implications of the fact that first stage boosters are not returning to land for re-use.
But wait. You saw it on Youtube or on CNN? And anyway, you’ve heard that ChatGPT is not always reliable. This is your means of debunking the laws of physics?
Let’s remind ourselves: Both GPT and Spacex tell us that the first stage booster in a Falcon 9 flight takes the spacecraft 300 – 500 miles eastward before stage separation and are hauling ass at over 4,000 mph when they separate. Then, in a 20 – 30 second ‘boostback burn’ using one third power the 238 foot booster has to turn around and reverse the booster’s direction, and bring it all the way back to where it started at the Cape, so it can touch down on a target the size of a manhole cover.
You’re going to believe this nonsense because… you saw it on your iPhone?
The earth is full in the back ground, right? This means ‘the sun’ is directly behind the camera position. So then why is the lower part of the car in shadow? And why is the windshield shadow falling on his arm, which means the light source is way to the left of frame? Why? Because it’s lit in a studio for Chrissakes! I could go on and on but this is a different subject.
But wait. Maybe you’ll bring up the spectators at the launch and booster landings, thinking that this disproves fakery. Something like this?
According to GPT and Spacex itself, ‘spectators’ can view the goings on from areas that are several miles from the Kennedy complex, i.e., the launch pad or the landing pad. This is for their ‘safety.’ Anyone closer to the action is going to be Spacex or NASA personnel. (Right, I’m talking about the idiots screaming their heads off, forgetting that all this was done and done better more than half a century ago — I mean if you believe that.)
Since it makes no sense to rig other (real) boosters to somehow appear out of thin air above the landing pad and drop for a perfect touch down, we might assume that the booster landings are done via hologram technology, which has been under DARPA refinement for decades.
You can laugh but if someone has a better explanation, I am all ears.
According to GPT, if a Falcon 9 blew up (as you see here), the explosion would be black smoke. Spacex, in order to be believable, faked its ‘failures.’ Not very realistically, though.
Addendum: I have done several videos exposing Musk’s ‘car in space’ as having been shot in a studio, and I stand by them, so we know his fakery goes back at least that far. (I am a photographer, a good one — see my blog photos — and know studio lighting when I see it.)
I’ve also analyzed Spacex’s early flights and found them to be fakes. (For example, I asked GPT what color a Falcon explosion would be and it said ‘Dark smoke’: all the explosions in Musk’s videos show white smoke, quite impossible for RP-1 kerosene base rocket fuel. And so on. It pretty much never ends.)
Here are some of my videos (here and here and here) but look at them as being separate from this essay, which is all that’s needed to make my point about Spacex fakery. In this one I am probably wrong about there being no boostback burn, but this was before I realized that the burn was moot, i.e., it matters not a bit since the booster continues on eastward with or without it.
This one exposes Musk’s ‘Boring Company’ for the two-bit fraud it is. There really is no end to the Musk frauds.
And this load of crap is supposed to belly flop from miles up then right itself at the last second and hit the manhole cover… tell me you don’t believe this… please…
Elon Musk is of course a cultural phenom who, aside from his many ground shattering start ups, wants to send us to Mars and plug our brains into a device of his manufacture, to make us all… smarter. Oh, and he of course wants us all to have free speech.
Yet he is faking his space adventures… Mmmm.
In my view Elon Musk’s real job has not yet surfaced.
While we wait to see what that job might be, he will continue to serve as a distraction from the endless bullshit his bosses rain down, meant to frighten us.
Allan
A Final Note on the Trouble We’re In
or
Fill Me In
When I saw the first double booster landing I thought, ‘Great, the whole world is going to understand what a load of crap this is. Even SNL (Saturday Night Live, which hasn’t been funny since I was in my 30s) is going to be all over this.’
I mean two of the fuckers, having fallen like bricks through 50 or so miles of unpredictable high winds and air the density of which is in principle chaotic/unfathomable, yet they somehow touch down in perfect unison? Who is going to believe that?
Certainly, physicists, if not the gatekeeper scumfucks like that blubber belly Tyson and whatsisname that got busted groping a female student… Krauss… but real physicists are not gonna put up with this…
And how about the good old ‘alt media’? We can depend on them, right?
You know the rest. Looks like it’s only me who’s gonna say anything.
What the fuck is wrong with our species?
Please fill me in.
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I’ll add a section here that I took out as being redundant. If you still haven’t figured out the above you should read it:
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And the booster has headed further east since stage separation, so the booster is actually farther from the landing pad (at the Cape) than at stage separation. Right? (Keep in mind that my added comments are in bold. Regular font means GPT’s words, including phrases italicized for emphasis.)
ChatGPT
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You raise valid points regarding the challenges of trajectory adjustments and the distance covered by the booster during its flight. Let’s address your concerns:
- Trajectory Adjustment: The entry burn does provide an opportunity for some trajectory adjustment, primarily to fine-tune the descent path and align the booster for the final landing approach. While it can help mitigate some factors like wind, its primary purpose is to slow down the descent rather than making significant lateral adjustments. The precise control of lateral trajectory, especially considering wind effects, is more reliant on earlier stages of the flight, such as the boostback burn and other engine burns.
- It’s not dealing with the question, is it? I made the obvious point that the booster will be farther east than it was at the boostback burn (stage separation) and it did not deal with that.
- The boostback burn is the only other burn before the entry burn, which only slows the descent; it has minimal if any effect on trajectory. During this ‘coasting phase’, the booster is flying ‘ballistic,’ i.e., with no means of adjusting trajectory.
- But it must be obvious by now what’s going on here: There is no way the booster(s) is going to be anywhere near the landing pad at the end of this mission.
- So whatever the cameras filmed and the spectators saw landing back at the Cape (see image ??), it was not the booster from this flight. (What it might have been will be dealt with later.)
- Distance Covered: It’s true that as the booster continues its flight, it covers additional distance from the stage separation point, particularly in the eastward direction.
- Do I have to keep emphasizing this? Yes, for the Michael Shermers out there, I do.
- The boostback burn itself slows down the booster and alters its trajectory, but it does not entirely reverse the eastward motion gained during ascent. As a result, the booster may still be positioned a considerable distance to the east of the landing site after the entry burn.
- ‘A considerable distance’ meaning many hundreds of miles, if not over a thousand.
The landing burn, which occurs after the entry burn, is primarily responsible for decelerating the booster and bringing it closer to a vertical descent. This burn further reduces the distance and aligns the booster for the final landing.
Addendum: I could easily show you why it would be virtually impossible for the booster stage to stick a landing during the landing burn but for the sake of simplicity, and given the fact that the booster cannot via the laws of physics be within hundreds of miles of the landing pad, I will spare you the added intellectual discomfort.
I did one final round with GPT below, which you can skip if you want, as it’s more of the same. What it does do, however, is show that even after 24 hours has passed, and with different phrasing of the prompts, GPT is telling the same story (which, again, is not contradicted by anything Spacex says.)
I do have important added comments, which begin under the subhead ‘What is Elon Musk?’
NOTE: I AM HAVING TROUBLE POSTING A COMMENT TO ANSWER BRIAN. I KEEP GETTING A ‘404’ MESSAGE, WHICH HAS NEVER HAPPENED BEFORE. AND THERE IS NOT EVEN A BLANK MESSAGE BOX AT THE BOTTOM. I DUNNO WHAT IS GOING ON. PLEASE TRY TO LEAVE A MESSAGE AND/OR CONTACT ME AT ACWDOWNSOUTH AT YAHOO DOT COM.
THIS IS FUCKED UP.
Sorry for late post but only catching up on your posts…
For the boosters to return back to the landing site, there would have to be enough fuel to basically undo or cancel the velocity vector eastward to get back to the general area. As we suspect there is not enough fuel to do this.
However, it is true that the relationship between the weight of the payload of a rocket and the weight of the fuel are kinda of exponential since particularly in the first few seconds off flight you need the huge thrust (=fuel burn) to lift the full weight of the rocket. The payload is always just a small fraction of the total weight. If you burn all your fuel, then clearly the final mass is far lower. Rockets actually accelerate greatly later in the fuel burn because they are still losing mass but the same constant force is still being applied and following the basic Newton law of: Force = Mass x Acceleration -since the mass is getting lower, then any force applied is getting larger.
Whilst it might be true that the rocket slows as it reaches maximum height, that (as far as I know) really only refers to the vertical component of the velocity vector and it still retains its horizontal (Easterly) component. The vertical component drops off because essentially the force of gravity is acting vertically and cancelling that part out. But there is no cancellation of the horizontal component. That is until the backburn is done. Presumably minor nitrogen thrusts can slowly rotate the rocket around since at max height it should be pointing horizontally rather than vertically so that when the backburn takes places it is pointing into the direction of flight.
But this is the key part, and thanks to Allan for bringing it up in this post and his earlier related ones, is that we are expected to believe there is enough fuel to cancel out this East pointing vector and go the other way. Granted it would require less fuel, because it has to act on less mass than it did on the way up. Yet that 20-30 secs burn has to fully cancel the momentum and give a bit of extra Westward momentum to travel back the 150 to 300 miles (or whatever) and still have fuel for the lower descent.
On a side note and this might be where people get tripped up. On say the shuttle or say Russian manned flights, to de-orbit, they also do a short back burn. But no-one ever suggests they rocket changes the direction and lands to the West. No the de-orbit burn is simply to drop sufficient speed, so the orbital arc dips down enough and the filaments of residual atmosphere causes enough friction to cause further slowdown and this quickly turns into a re-entry maneuver. But the direction of travel is still forward overall.
I reckon the “physicists” are thinking of the back-burn SpaceX talks about as like a de-orbit burn and so is the same in their minds, and they just don’t think about it any further (-ie that it is fundamentally different because of the claim of reversing direction of travel) and somehow deep down (just like all the doctors did in Covid), they know not to ask any awkward questions.
Coming back to the reverse thrust problem, it would be nice to see actual calculations of how much fuel it would take to completely reverse direction, but my gut feeling is that they are not doing it here. To do the calculations, you would need to know the starting weight ratio of fuel to payload. The burn rate. The amount of fuel remaining at max height. The specific impulse when the engine fires up. And given these could have variable burn rates, that complicates it even more. We would probably have to know the launch arc shape too. We of course will never get these figures
Lets say for the sake of argument, you could do it when 10% of the original fuel remains, because you will be moving far less mass since 90% of the fuel (and hence mass of the rocket) is gone. That means you are also impacting what payload weight you can lift and you are making a big sacrifice there as well as in cost. You could argue the cost reduction gained by re-using the booster offsets some of that cost.
All of that only deals with imparting a momentum change to the booster equal and opposite to that which it gained, the other stuff about landing a rocket vertically down through the atmosphere would no way to steer it, is so far fetched is that when you think about it, seems impossible, given that as pointed out, there are almost zero control mechanism to steer it. It also seems highly unlikely you could even attempt it without ensuring you had a decent margin of fuel to accomplish it. And why not just use parachutes instead?. They did that with the Shuttle boosters (which landed downstream out in the ocean), although it was said the sea water damaged them because of all the salt etc
In some ways it raises the question why would you want to pull a stunt like that landing back at the launch site? Is it purely to take the piss or what? Why do they want us to believe that particular act?
Don’t forget (you seem to have) that via ChatGPT AND Spacex after takeoff there is never any movement of anything westward. This is the ball game. If you read the unedited version, this is repeated so many times in so many ways that i felt weird insulting you all’s intelligence by leaving it in. Apparently i should not have worried about it.
(Since westward travel is ruled out by the telemetry i didnt see a reason for the math, altho common sense tells us that a short burn at 30% power would not be close to enough to turn the thing around after killing the 4,000 mph eastward trajectory. Plus there is of course the lack of airfoil to steer it within 5 feet of the x on the pad.)
I suppose my response is simply that it would have been nice if youd sum it up by saying thanks for pointing out what no one noticed after years of insults. Or maybe mention that the continued acceptance of this preposterous shit is a good example of what’s wrong with homo sapiens, why there is so little hope and so on.
I replied via my iPad and am awaiting moderation. What can I say?
By the way, Terrence, do you believe this really happens:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WIoqSHnSn3o
What you see there cannot happen in the real world.
The title of Allan’s epistle is, “Who or what is Elon Musk?” It’s an excellent question.
Let’s start with the “who” part of the question. IMO, Elon Musk is almost certainly a construct of the U.S. national security state. By construct I mean that his proffered professional identity, e.g. brilliant, science savvy, captain of industry, entrepreneurial titan, and, richest man in the world, is utter hokum. Musk is, in effect, an actor who’s been cast to portray this very grand and extraordinary character. What are his qualifications to play this part? What are any of these very public fakes’ qualifications? Start with a willingness to do play the role for life. That’s at least half the battle. Are you willing to live the part, because that’s what’s required. It’s not the role of a lifetime, it’s a lifetime role. It strikes me that it’s permanent undercover work, except it’s all, or mostly all, taking place in the public purview.
I assume many, perhaps most or all of such “lifers” are handled, some very tightly, others less so, depending on conditions and circumstances. We can plug in a host of theories about why these individuals get chosen over others who might be willing to live the part, but, ultimately, it’s unknowable, because (my guess is) the actual identities of these people are buried. No genealogical search is going to unearth the details.
On another note, I did find it amusing, and potentially revealing, to discover that TESLA is an anagram of Steal and vice versa. I know it’s meant to be Tesla’ himself (who may also have been fake) that is evoked by the name, but, in a very real sense, electric cars are ultimately about stealing people’s ability to drive, to be mobile via auto since there isn’t nearly enough lithium to keep the fleet adequately stocked. TESLA almost seems like another inside joke by the folks who love to troll humanity.
But back to Musk who is as counterfeit as, say Canada’s creepy human rights criminal PM, Justin Trudeau, who, by all appearances, is not the offspring of Pierre Trudeau, but, more likely the son of Fidel Castro, who Justin’s mother is said to have had a dalliance with. What historical figure from the not too distant past does Elon look like? No one’s coming to mind. Perhaps he’s not human at all. He does gives off an odd affect, but that’s probably just the result of being on the spectrum. The name SPACEX, of course, is another troll, but of a different sort. When one says the name out loud, it sounds like SpaceSex.
Good summation, Duke.
I had never heard of this guy Andrew Tate but you all should see his interview by Tucker Carlson: https://youtu.be/ybXYvg6O7kI
He seems to understand what we’re up against.
OK, here we go. The first diagram and the second diagram depict two different scenarios. The first is a return to launch site, and the second is a landing on the barge waiting down range. For our purpose we will use the first one because we are talking about a return to launch site landing. According to the diagram the booster does an overhead loop to change direction. That would explain the change in altitude from 72km at separation tp 126km at the end of the boostback burn. The speed also changes from 5900kph to 2024kph. When the booster reaches its max altitude, 131km it has slowed to 1565kmh. The booster does not stop to change direction, it turns in a 60km loop. You are going to say “but chat gpt say its still moving east”. If its a barge landing down range yes, not a return to launch site landing. If spacex has this huge fraud going on, how could they miss such a simple thing as a telemetry data error on the footage they show the whole world?
The second picture states this:
“A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket blasted off from Florida on Monday with a payload of communications satellites before the reusable main-stage booster turned around, soared back to Cape Canaveral and landed safely near it’s launch pad.”
Therefore, this second picture is not for landing on a barge.
Good point. That makes no sense, does it?
They used the wrong diagram with their caption. See the other one? they should have used that one.
Re that quote and the diagram: There is nothing about it that is not nonsensical fraud. And Brian says:
“If spacex has this huge fraud going on, how could they miss such a simple thing as a telemetry data error on the footage they show the whole world?”
Hilarious. Seriously, Brian, you are not paying attention to anything, not my post, and not the world around you. The first step is to realize that.
They did not make a telemetry data error. Thats my point>
in the first diagram, see how the booster changes course, comes back to where it started? In the second one see how it lands under the 2nd stage still heading east. Are you not thinking so as to agree with Allan?
That was for todd
You are leaving comments but not answering my simple question. It went straight up, right, Brian? Do you have to think deeply on this one?
A simple question to start: You are accepting (as is shown in the diagram) that the boost back burn takes place over land, i.e., the Falcon has only gone straight up since blast off. Is that right, Brian?
No. Are you going to base you argument on a not to scale picture? The booster flies back the same distance it flew east.
Flies back only according to their fraudulent BS on paper. Brian, you are the one to ask – WHY does the SpaceX Corp. and fanclubs of Moron/Goons APPLAUD when something of SpaceX’s Blowsup??? (And too often, all the bloody time!). It’s batshit brainless crazy, and has always been one of their giant red flags of outright FRAUD. And there are many red flags. Another beauty, was Musk presenting the crappiest looking rocket fabrication – Ever!! – at NIGHTIME (for obvious reasons).
And BTW – what is Musk? – I will tell you – Someone who always looks like a Deer in the headlights at interviews, because in his head it’s ‘Oh No, what questions are they going to ask me, and WHAT BS can I use for answers’.
Still not answering. Who are you?
Allan the rocker does not go straight up like the obvious simple diagram shows. It heads east like you have been talking about. You are the one misdirecting and changing the subject.
We know Brian knows the SpaceX rockets are garbage, UNSAFE, and the lies from Musk endless and Ridiculous. But it sounds like Brian wants to be the first passenger to Mars. Sorry Brian, all a fraud, and about a million years away – well to rephrase it NEVER, by trying to use those fake charade rockets.
Good work Allan, thank you, you have confirmed my suspicions , no offense but it does seem rather obvious. Added together with the Spacex rocket blowing up in a white cloud of smoke with no visible wreckage falling. State of the art CGI .
It’s aggravating to have idiots (or shills) distracting people from a truth that is admittedly difficult to accept (like JFK or 9/11, etc.). Aside from GPT’s continual assurance that the booster flies east the whole time (info it gets from Spacex), can these people look at the diagrams Spacex ITSELF provides? Using the second one (since the other is laughably ‘out of scale’), can someone tell me how they figure the booster returned to the cape for landing?
Why is this never mentioned by ‘Brian’ or ‘Tim’? It DOES NOT MATTER whether there was a flip or not if the booster only flies east. Can’t these two see that? If either is going to post again here, first they have to explain the diagram. Do that then they can spout their bullshit. otherwise I delete. I don’t need nonsense here after the work I’ve done.
Impressive post Allan. Your logic is hard to dispute much like the previous post on human origins. I think you are hitting on some topics that challenge embedded beliefs and some people just don’t like it. So much for thinking critically. I have come to think of Musk as a con artist and not a very convincing one at that. That they lie and get subsidies for this crap is what kills me.
Yes, even with his stuttering he is too good to be true, esp with the bullshit car in orbit way back when. As with the human origins thing it’s ChatGPT that makes these posts possible. No other way to really bring out the lies. It will be interesting to see how it goes with future iterations of AI.
Great observation Allan about the booster heading east and continues to do so. Had to lookup the video and see for myself. Strange how after the BB burn is done (after the 20-30 burn), the telemetry still shows the stage 1 booster to be slowing down.
See time 3:40-4:00mins post launch
And, of course, they never show the flip maneuver from the inside camera view that’s supposed to look up the arse of stage 2’s rocket motor. 2:46-2:48 post time launch.
Yeah, there are several other telemetry-related issues that blow the whistle on more lies. Just too much for one post. Keep it simple as possible so there is not a bunch to misdirect for guys like Brian and Tim.
in the May 21 flight the total distance eastward would (based on telemetry) be less than 300 miles — my error — but the booster still of course is traveling east and continues to do so for the whole flight, which means a landing at the Cape is impossible. QED.
To simplify: In my May 21 flight, at stage separation the booster is at 3,800 plus mph, right? You can look at the embedded image telemetry for that. Traveling east, obviously. Using ONE THIRD of its engines it is supposed to reverse direction and head it back to the Cape, with a burn of less than 30 seconds. It still has enough fuel for the entry and landing burns which I estimate a bit less than a third of that by weight, so…. how’s it going to stop the 3,800 mph direct and reverse it.? GPT says it doesn’t and keeps going east.
Mmmm?
Note from AW: This comment is nothing but deceit. I WILL PUT MY COMMENTS IN CAPS.
Ok, I’ll try. I think there are some misconceptions and some missing information that might help clear things up. Note: I’m not a professional or an SpaceX apologist.
1. You mention a 180 degree “course change”, but this doesn’t imply a 180 degree “flip” of the rocket. Looking at the video, the rocket starts burning from the opposite side as it was when it was accelerating, meaning that almost immediately it is decelerating by thrusting in the opposite direction. The attitude then only has to change at the most 90 degrees or so, at least prior to atmosphere reentry. This is done through the Nitrogen Thrusters. HERE HE IS SAYING THAT THE ROCKET HAS ENGINES AT BOTH ENDS! HERE: ‘the rocket starts burning from the opposite side as it was when it was accelerating,’ THIS IS THE QUALITY OF HIS THINKING. EITHER THE BOOSTER FLIPPED OR IT DIDN’T. IF IT DID AS HE SAID THEN THE VIDEO IS FAKED.
2. The Nitrogen Thrusters are held on by a long lever, giving them greater leverage to turn the rocket, and turning the rocket is much easier than thrusting, especially with much of the fuel gone thanks to the ascent. PURE BALDERDASH. THERE IS NO ‘LEVER’. SHOW US THE ‘LEVER’, TIM. WHO ARE YOU WORKING FOR?
3. I didn’t see a lot of mention of the engine gimbals, but even a slight adjustment of the direction of thrust from the engine can provide a huge help in rotating the rocket. This, along with the small, but non-zero help of the grid fins means that while most of the maneuvering is done outside the atmosphere, there is plenty of control to maneuver on the descent. ANOTHER OUTRIGHT LIE. JUST MAKES NO SENSE. READ THE POST.
With this info, we can agree that the change in attitude is pretty achievable. So all there is left is whether the boosters can change the direction of the rocket. WHY NO MENTION OF THE FACT THAT THE BOOSTER TRAVELS EAST FOR THE WHOLE FLIGHT, WHICH MAKES A LANDING AT THE CAPE IMPOSSIBLE?
4. First the “speed” in the telemetry is pretty misleading. This is not the velocity relative to the Earth, it is the absolute speed of the rocket and it doesn’t tell us the direction of the rocket at all. You can see in the video that it lowers down to around 1500 KM/H before increasing again, but this counts the rate of ascent/descent so when the telemetry drops to 1500 KM/H it is really at 0 KM/H laterally. I can’t say for sure what the speed was when it was going East at max, but it wasn’t 4000 KM/H because it was counting the speed of ascent.WHAT A LOAD OF CRAP. WATCH THE VIDEO. THE SPEED IS ALWAYS MEASURED IN ‘SPEED OVER THE GROUND’ YOU MORON. IT NEVER ‘CHANGES’ FROM EAST TO WEST.
5. Yes, the rocket is using only three of its nine engines, but the weight has been greatly reduced due to disconnecting the second stage and the payload and burning over 90% its fuel on the ascent. So the engine may only be using 1/3 of its power, but the weight of the almost empty first stage rocket is about 5% of the weight upon liftoff. This makes the velocity change very doable.SO WHAT, SINCE IT NEVER HEADS WEST AT ANY POINT, AS GPT and Spacex BOTH SAY. THIS GUY IS EITHER AN IDIOT OR A STATE SHILL, ONE OR THE OTHER.
I know I didn’t take the time to lookup and write out all the exact numbers here, but hopefully this helps clear up the principles of how the controlled descent is physically possible.
I can’t do this, answer mostly details that do not answer the big questions, it’s too discouraging. Not a word in your comment about how many times GPT assured us that the direction of travel of the booster after the separation and boostback burn is east, which means it could not have landed back at the Cape. I am not going to deal with comments that do not say a word about this giant contradiction.
Wow awesome post Allan, and you are absolutely correct about the impossibility of that piece of CGI crap to land on the dime, after 100’s of miles away. And YES, the answers trotted out for you are very disappointing, and trying to baffle with bullshit. Someone said earlier somewhere – ‘but they have engines that can be gimbled a 1000 x a second’ – well what useless in the real world, bunch of crap that is!!. Good on you Allan, for being the only person in the world exposing this fraud too!.
Brett, seems like I’ve provided powerful if not inarguable evidence for the biggest hoax of the modern error and no one seems interested (almost no one!). How discouraging is that, given my last post proved the existence of a higher power and a vital detail re our bio history?
it’s getting more and more obvious what the problem is, once again begging the question, Why bother?
On the other hand, it’s a bit early yet. Let’s see if folks surface.
Yeah, pretty disappointing that more readers are not seeing how obvious this is. I want to send this to all the alt media to see who is really on our side, but the lack of support is not a help.
This is mostly untrue in spirit and detail. Bullshit. Over 90% fuel burned? Bullshit. Still needs entry and landing burn. Nothing accrate. Why are you lying?
Slowing descent requires rather less power than does upward acceleration. Also, within the atmosphere, the air resistance is then helping rather than hindering. Next, of course, the fuel burnt for the ascent isn’t having to be supported in the braked descent. Finally, the booster’s purpose is to assist in lifting the main rocket (including a Tesla car (!!!) or other payload inside it). For the booster’s descent, it has only itself to move.
On that basis, I can believe 90%+, but I say this without ever having done any calculations of that sort.
You might have mentioned that it is still traveling EAST, no matter the speed.
Allan,
Your analysis is pretty lengthy and so I hope I might just be, slightly, forgiven for asking about something that’s probably perfectly clear, somewhere in there.
What is the most definitive citation for the continued eastward travel (of the booster, not the main rocket), please?
Apart from the backwards landing, which is a point in an earlier of your blog posts, everything else seems plausible, to me (or at least those aspects I’ve tried to examine do).
I can believe ChatGPT has simply become a little “confused” here (which is not to suggest the bloody thing has consciousness).
I’m sure the Tesla lighting issue is irrefutable.
I am curious. Ask it if there is a left or right in space. I seem to think our Physics teacher telling us direction was meaningless in terms of space in relationship to earth outside our atmosphere. So to deal with direction they took some sighting from some planet or star far far away. It does seem a vehicle could turn by degrees but does it? I mean if it turns 180 degrees….where was the zero point? in relation to what fixed place?
Zero point is it’s own ass
You saw in the video the boostback burn does not flip the booster it rotated as it seperated from the upper stage. Also, why do you say the booster is continuing on an easterly tragectory? I dont see any info on those screen grabs that indicates what direction the booster is heading.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpWZz6z8hjw Go to 3:45 in the video. You can clearly see the cold gas thrusters flipping the booster as it separates.
I just watched that video again. That was one of the launches I watched the whole return of the booster from seperation to landing with binoculars . The cold gas thrusters put on an incredable show. Notice how bright the booster is coming in? Its in the sunlight. At the end after the landing notice its dark out? Those just after sunset launches are the best.
We’ll see if this comment works ( have been unable to answer)
I get a ‘404’ error page
.
FOR BRIAN:
Let’s forget about the fact that we are dealing with different flights (which you have obviously done). Why do I say the booster is continuing on an east course? that’s like asking how do I know it’s headed UP, isn’t it? Did you or did you not read my post? Start with that. GPT AND Spacex SAY the obvious, i.e, that the Falcon is going east, even after the boost back burn. This is one of about a dozen times GPT repeats this:
‘Typically, the boostback burn is followed by a relatively horizontal coast phase, during which the booster continues to travel eastward as it gains altitude. This coast phase allows the booster to cover additional distance before initiating the entry burn.’
I’ll not put up with the insult of your not having read the post, so do not ask again why I think eastward is the direction of travel.
What the hell: here is an excerpt from the postscript:
Me:
And the booster has headed further east since stage separation, so the booster is actually farther from the landing pad (at the Cape) than at stage separation. Right?
ChatGPT
1 / 1
You raise valid points regarding the challenges of trajectory adjustments and the distance covered by the booster during its flight. Let’s address your concerns:
Trajectory Adjustment: The entry burn does provide an opportunity for some trajectory adjustment, primarily to fine-tune the descent path and align the booster for the final landing approach. While it can help mitigate some factors like wind, its primary purpose is to slow down the descent rather than making significant lateral adjustments. The precise control of lateral trajectory, especially considering wind effects, is more reliant on earlier stages of the flight, such as the boostback burn and other engine burns.
Me: It’s not dealing with the question, is it? I made the obvious point that the booster will be farther east than it was at the boostback burn (stage separation) and it did not deal with that. The boostback burn is the only other burn before the entry burn, which only slows the descent; it has minimal if any effect on trajectory. During this ‘coasting phase’, the booster is flying ‘ballistic,’ i.e., with no means of adjusting trajectory. But it must be obvious by now what’s going on here: There is no way the booster(s) is going to be anywhere near the landing pad at the end of this mission. So whatever the cameras filmed and the spectators saw landing back at the Cape (see image ??), it was not the booster from this flight. (What it might have been will be dealt with later.)
ChatGPT: Distance Covered: It’s true that as the booster continues its flight, it covers additional distance from the stage separation point, particularly in the eastward direction (!!!!!) (my emphasis).
Do I have to keep emphasizing this? Yes, for the Michael Shermers out there, I do.
ChatGPT: The boostback burn itself slows down the booster and alters its trajectory, but it does not entirely reverse the eastward motion gained during ascent. As a result, the booster may still be positioned a considerable distance to the east (!!!!) of the landing site after the entry burn.
Me: ‘A considerable distance’ meaning many hundreds of miles, if not over a thousand.
#
Are you starting to get the ideal of why I think it’s going east? And if it is going east the whole flight there is no way it could land a short distance from the launch pad, as they claim on the may 21 flight. Which means the landing spectators see was not real. If there is another explanation, please tell me. Seriously. In you next comment, tell me how the booster could go east for the whole flight and end up back where it started. I don’t care what you say you SAW. That can be manipulated. How about physics and direction of travel, using the May 21 flight.
One more out of so so many:
Me:
So at the beginning of the entry burn, the booster stage is actually farther east than it was at stage separation, right? I repeat my questions and phrase them in a way that allows GPT to tell ‘the truth’ without actually saying that the booster must be in two places at once, i.e., hundreds of mile to the east while a cheering mob watches it land back at the Cape.
ChatGPT
1 / 1
Yes, that is correct.(!!!!) After the boostback burn, the booster stage continues to travel eastward during the coast phase, which occurs before the entry burn. As a result, when the entry burn begins, the booster is typically positioned farther east (!!!!!) than it was at the point of stage separation.
After the boostback burn and the subsequent coast phase, the booster will generally be positioned farther east (!!!!) from the launch site compared to the point of stage separation.
#
Sure would have been easier if you read the post and paid attention while doing so! That you asked me why I think it’s flying east is flat unbelievable. Why not look at the diagrams? Did you that? They are from Spacex and show eastward flying.
You tell us Chat GPT is spewing BS to misdirect and give false info to influence our conclusions. And then tell us Chat GPT gave you information that proves what we see with our own eyes is false. Its one or the other. The booster is not traveling around the earth to arrive back at the landing site. Why can”t a rocket booster pointing west fire up and send the booster in that direction?
One thing at a time, Brian. Why can’t you respond to the obvious here, i.e, that a continual eastward flight (which GPT and Spacex tell us) makes a landing at the cape impossible? Why is it that you will not deal with that, given that my whole post was on this subject?
If you believe the booster went from 3,800 mph east to some high speed west, show us where that happened and how it happened. 3,800 mph is pretty fast, isn’t it? And the booster is using only one third of its power in its boost back burn. And where does Spacex tell us that the direction of travel has been reversed? Wow, lotsa contradictions!
And did you know that to stick its landing, for the boostback burn Spacex must calculate wind speed to within 5 decimal points of one mph? A detail. That’s to hit within 5 feet of its target.
Did you see all this on a smart phone or a laptop? Where do you think GPT is getting its info? From spacex of course. Did you get tired of hearing that the booster traveled east for the whole flight or are you incapable of understanding that this means it could not have landed at the cape?
You as an ‘eyewitness’ means nothing to me compared to the spacex call out and GPT.
He’s the Ultimate Limited Hangout.
I’m a limited hangout? Where do I pick up my check? And where do I check in for further instructions?
I can understand Lamont’s accusation given the way you ignored completely the point I repeated over and over and then went off on misdirection. You still have not dealt with how a constant flight east could equal a landing back at the cape.
Go to 3:45 on this one, its more clear. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KpWZz6z8hjw You can actually watch it happen with binoculars when the conditions are right. I have followed the boosters from seperation to landing with binoculars on more than one occasion.
Binoculars? An object the size of a booster, at a distance of 300 miles plus? The thing will even be mostly much closer to end on than side on.
Have you looked at the Rayleigh criterion?
Good point. The booster is like 230 feet long. Can you calculate whether it’s possible to see that angle? I’d like to know, if only in theory. He’s not going to see that far through all that air for 300 plus miles but…. be nice to wrap it up with physics.
Seriously, Denis, I am too tired right now to figure out if the Rayleigh criterion can prove that the images have to be faked. Do you know how to do it. It would be great evidence re how they are fooling people like Brian.
Actually, on a rough calculation, you would be within the Rayleigh criterion, even for an end on view, if your binoculars had about a 4 cm objective lens.
A remaining challenge is the effect of the air through which you are viewing. Certainly can’t see 300 miles at ground level, but your line of sight banks up to 40 km (or something).
Too bad. Thing is, you can watch the telemetry (I am using the May 21, 2023 flight) and see that the booster continues on at high speed east after the boostback burn (just as GPT says), which makes a landing at the Cape impossible. This of course means that the May 21 mission was faked. If one was faked… I assume they all were. Is this unreasonable?
Allan,
In 2.5 minutes, at 4000 mph, the thing would travel 167 miles.
However, within that period, it was accelerating from rest and ascending. So, easterly displacement would be somewhat less then just calculated.
For it to be 300 miles east, would have required a significantly greater velocity earlier in the flight, meaning it had slowed prior to the boost back burn.
I know you’d reported over 4000 mph, but I guess you didn’t mean almost double that.
I thought I was over doing it, repeating way too many times that the booster continues to the east after stage separation. I didn’t want to insult intelligences by repeating it over and over too many times. I guess I shouldn’t have worried…
and yes, in the May 21 flight the total distance eastward would (based on telemetry) be less than 300 miles, but the booster still of course is traveling east and continues to do so for the whole flight, which means a landing at the Cape is impossible. QED.
You did a perfect job explaining on this post Allan. And yes they are using funny business tricks on the imagery – just like with 9/11. You are probably dead right – Hologram.
Allan, The booster flips before the boostback burn. Go to 2:45 for some good footage of the event. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GXnDFc7BqU
I guess your point is that you can see (with or without binocs) 300 – 500 miles down range, huh? Did you bother to read my work? Did you bother to look at the Spacex diagrams? Do you not understand that after the bb burn there is no way to maneuver or change trajectory even one little iota? Are you unaware that with or without a bb burn, the booster is going to keep going east?
You do believe you are seeing 300 – 500 miles, right?
when the sun has just set and the boosters are up in sunlight, you can see the sun reflecting off of them. You really should come check it out for youself.
And did you see them flip in the video?
You really are not paying attention. ‘Seeing them flip’ is like saying I saw the Statue of Liberty disappear. I’ll be patient: how do you explain what you ‘saw’ — the landing on the Cape pad — given that the booster continues eastward after the separation?