The red figure-eight in the image is the ground track of a geosynchronous satellite in a circular orbit with an inclination of 20 degrees. (The yellow tear-drop shape is what you get when you give that satellite an elliptical orbit with an eccentricity of 0.10). Most of the geosynchronous satellites aren’t inclined that steeply, of course, but some are. The International Ultraviolet Explorer, for example, is in a geosynchronous orbit with a 28.63 degree inclination, so it would trace out an even bigger figure-eight than the one in the image. Please explain to me how the forces in your geocentric world can cause a satellite to trace out a figure-eight every day over the stationary earth.

Although I will elaborate and explain in more detail what this “magical force” is, in my last post I said that there would most likely be some gravitational or electromagnetic force holding the GSS at 22,236. What is so surprising about that? Aren’t gravitational and electromagnetic forces exactly what makes all of your Heliocentric motions work?

Gravitational, yes, but as far as I know, not electromagnetic. Known gravitational sources (sun, earth, etc.) account for the motion of known objects (moon, satellite, etc.). But you don’t know where the force you’re proposing comes from (maybe it’s inertial force from the stars, maybe it’s an electromagnetic band), and the force you’re proposing can’t account for the motion we observe. It can’t account for the rhythmic oscillation of the geostationary satellites, which varies from satellite to satellite, and it can’t account for the orbit of the Chandra X-ray Observatory, either.

Thus, the only thing deterring you is that you don’t like the idea that these gravitational or electromagnetic forces can act in a stationary environment as opposed to a moving one, isn’t it?

No, I don’t like the idea of explaining that geostationary satellites behave exactly as if they were in slightly eccentric orbits around a rotating earth by throwing up my hands and guessing that there must be some unknown forces out there that just happen to exactly simulate orbital behavior. You might as well attribute their behavior to poltergeists. That would be about as plausible.

Previous:

Geostationary satellites don’t orbit in a perfect circle! They can be thought of as doing so because their orbits are nearly circular, but the truth is their orbits are slightly elliptical. GOES 8 for example, has an apogee of 35,799 km and a perigee of 35,783 km. Telstar 5 has an apogee of 35,799 km and a perigee of 35,773 km. And Directv 2 has an apogee of 35,796 km and a perigee of 35,777 km. So these satellites aren’t completely stationary relative to the earth. They move toward and away from the earth each day, which makes them speed up and slow down as they orbit. This makes them appear to oscillate in an east-west direction twice each sidereal day.

First, the apogee and perigee calculations that you present for the GSS are not what Kepler proposed for moving satellites.

Sure they are. Kepler proposed simply that the planets move in elliptical orbits, which they do. So do geostationary satellites. So do all the other satellites.

You can prove this by comparing the apogee and perigee of any other satellite, either satellites closer to earth than the GSS or farther away (like Chandra). Those satellites have true Keplerian orbit; orbits with significant swings in their ellipses, but the GSS does not.

For your information, most artificial satellites don’t have significant swings in their ellipses. The Iridium 8 satellite, for example, has an apogee of 779.51 km and a perigee of 775.69 km, giving it an eccentricity of just 0.00027. That is a more circular orbit than that of the GOES 8 geostationary satellite (eccentricity: 0.00047). The Cosmos 1063 satellite has an apogee of 378.74 km and a perigee of 377.23 km, giving it an eccentricity of just 0.00011. That is a more circular orbit than that of GOES 8 and Telstar 5 (eccentricity: 0.00012). Finally, the Iridium 71 satellite has an apogee of 773.03 km and a perigee of 771.97 km, giving it an incredibly small eccentricity of just 0.0000742. That’s a more circular orbit than almost any of the geostationary satellites.

According to your figures, it has virtually no ellipse at all, and thus its orbit is considered circular by those who designed it.

Yeah, just like almost every other earth-orbiting satellite. Satellites with highly elliptical orbits, like Chandra (eccentricity 0.756), are the exception, not the rule.

That’s what the science books say. According to your calculations (35,799 as opposed to 35,783 miles) there is only a four hundredths of a percent difference between the perigee and apogee. Kepler’s elliptical calculations were much, much larger than that.

Kepler was plotting the motion of planets, not predicting the motion of artificial satellites. The orbits of most artificial satellites are nearly circular.

So, I think you’ve just added more paint around your corner, since your Newtonian and Keplerian math cannot explain why only the GSS satellites do not have the standard Keplerian dimensions of all the other satellites.

You really should quit while you’re behind. It’s obvious you didn’t bother to research the orbits of other satellites before you declared that they were radically different from those of the geostationary satellites. The truth is, the orbits of most of the geostationary satellites are slightly more circular than the orbits of most of the lower-flying satellites, but not by much. And, just to shoot your theory full of holes, many of the lower-flying satellites are in orbits that are even more circular than most of the geostationary satellites.

Second, if there were any movement in the GSS (and there is, but it is slight) I attribute it to the same Lense-Thirring or Machian effects I have stated before, but which you have refused to address in these dialogues.

You’ve said that according to the Lense-Thirring effect “a rotating shell causes centrifugal and Coriolis forces for objects within the shell that are akin to the centrifugal and Coriolis forces we experience on earth.” Okay, fine. But the centrifugal forces we feel on earth are insignificant. They aren’t enough to suspend a feather in mid-air, much less a four-ton satellite. Yet this is what, for lack of anything else, you guess must be holding up the geostationary satellites. Of course, those satellites are 22,236 miles closer to the rotating shell, so you propose that this distance marks the equilibrium point between earth’s gravity and the centrifugal force from the rotating shell of stars. But then you can’t explain how the Chandra X-ray Observatory glides out four times farther away from the earth than this alleged “equilibrium point” but is still turned around and pulled back, just as if no such equilibrium point existed. Unless you can explain how the Lense-Thirring effect, or some other force, accounts for the motion of both the geostationary satellites (including their daily oscillation) and the orbit of Chandra, I think I will have said all I have to say about this.

That effect, which every physicist I know agrees to, is that the same exact results of movement and forces will occur in the framework of a rotating earth in a stationary star system, or in the framework of a stationary earth with a rotating star system.

Then please explain to me how this effect causes the geostationary satellites to hover above the earth and to oscillate slightly toward and away from the earth each day at the same time they oscillate slightly east-west and north-south. And please explain to me how the same effect causes all of the geostationary satellites to oscillate differently. This is all easily accounted for by the fact that those satellites are in different, slightly elliptical and slightly inclined orbits around a rotating earth, but I don’t think it can be accounted for by any known interaction of forces if they are hovering above a stationary earth. If you think it can be accounted for in that system, by all means prove it. I have offered evidence that disproves your system. Now the burden of proof shifts back to you. Show me a combination of forces on that satellite (and the cause or causes of those forces) that result in that pattern of motion. If you can’t, then I’ve proved my point.

Previous:

For one thing, as I just pointed out, geostationary satellites orbit in a slightly elliptical path. But even if their orbits were perfectly circular, so what? A circle is just a special case of an ellipse (in which both foci overlap). Further, Newton observed that there are four possible orbital paths in a gravitational field: elliptical, circular, hyperbolic, and parabolic.

First, even if your explanation were true, you have to explain why only the GSS at 22,235 miles has a virtual circular orbit, whereas satellites closer and further away from earth have highly elliptisized orbits.

As I said, most artificial satellites have nearly circular orbits. Only a few (e.g., Chandra, Amsat-Oscar 40, and XMM-Newton) have highly elliptical orbits. Don’t believe me? Here’s a list of some other satellites and their eccentricities (in order from least to most circular):

OPS 8180 (RADCAT)    0.0004992

ERBS                 0.0004983

COSMOS 1833          0.0004173

JERS-1               0.0003216

ORBVIEW 2            0.0002765

ERS-1 R/B            0.0002311

IRIDIUM 17           0.0002299

IRIDIUM 41           0.0002257

IRIDIUM 82           0.0002242

IRIDIUM 15           0.0002222

IRIDIUM 77           0.0002215

IRIDIUM 81           0.0002157

IRIDIUM 80           0.0001997

IRIDIUM 73           0.0001945

SEASAT 1             0.0001803

OKEAN O              0.0001783

COSMOS 2297 R/B      0.0001687

COSMOS 1063          0.0001112

ERS 2                0.0000924

You just can’t claim that some orbits are circular and then conveniently place the GSS in that category. You have to have a reason and an explanation for that. Your own reference to Chandra forces you to give such an explanation, since now you must explain why the GSS, which is between the highly elliptical orbits of Chandra and the GPS, assumes a near circular orbit and defies all the heretofore Keplerian dimensions of satellite orbit.

Actually, it’s you who has some explaining to do. Of the nine planets, Venus is considered to have a nearly circular orbit, with an eccentricity of just 0.007. Now, compare that number to the eccentricities of the satellites I listed above. All of them have orbits that are much more circular than that of Venus. I’ve researched the orbits of 330 geosynchronous satellites, and their average eccentricity is 0.0007566. I also found 108 low-flying satellites whose orbit was more circular than that. If you’re a glutton for punishment I’ll be glad to send you the list.

Second, circular orbits were not part of Kepler’s explanation of satellites or planets. The whole reason Keplerian orbits were invented was to eliminate the need for circular orbits, since the Copernican model was more unstable with circular orbits than the Ptolemaic model was with epicycles!

Kepler was not predicting what kind of orbits were possible, he was observing what kind of orbits the planets were actually following. The Copernican model had postulated circular orbits for the planets, but Kepler observed that the planets were really following elliptical orbits (though they were nearly circular). Kepler didn’t say that circular orbits were impossible, he just observed that none of the planets were orbiting that way. But we have plenty of experience with artificial satellites that proves that highly circular orbits are possible. In fact, they’re quite the norm among artificial satellites.

Unless you have some proof for the rotation of the earth, then you’ve failed the Challenge. That’s the point. You can try to base your “proof” on what a Syncom 3 technician “believed” about a rotating earth, but that’s not proof. It’s only proof that a man can send up a satellite thinking that the earth rotates (when it actually doesn’t) because the math he uses to send it up is going to be the same as if it was as fixed-earth and a fixed satellite, especially since the technician doesn’t use moving earth and moving satellite calculations to determine his needs.

Your explanation for why geostationary satellites don’t fall is implausible. You simply assert, with no evidence, that there must be some sort of counteracting force up there that just happens to be exactly strong enough to suspend the satellite in mid-air. That’s not a reasoned response to my evidence, it’s simply a wild guess designed to plug a huge hole in your theory. Unless you can show me what causes this mysterious force, and unless you can account for the motion of satellites like Chandra in light of the existence of this force, your theory has been disproved. Further, my theory can account for the daily rhythmic motion of geostationary satellites (they are in slightly elliptical orbits around a rotating earth). Unless your theory can also account for that motion, it has been disproved.

Previous:

It’s not a Copernican belief system that forces people to think geostationary satellites are orbiting the earth, it’s the knowledge that if they weren’t orbiting the earth they’d drop like a rock (your desperate appeal to non-existent magical forces notwithstanding).

As for your “magical forces” comment, even NASA itself believes there is a neutral gravity zone between the earth and the moon 24,000 miles from the moon. According to their own mechanics, objects placed there will remain motionless. Is that some “magical” force, too?

No, it’s simply the equilibrium point between two known gravitational sources. If you move closer to the earth from that point, the earth’s gravity will be stronger; if you move toward the moon, the moon’s gravity will be stronger. That means that if you release an object on the lunar side of this equilibrium point, it will fall toward the moon. But you’ve postulated a neutral gravity zone between the earth and the stars at only 22,236 miles above earth. If that were the case, then objects placed on the stellar side of that zone would fall toward the stars. But that’s not what really happens. The Chandra X-ray Observatory goes four times farther from earth than your alleged equilibrium point, yet earth’s gravity still turns it around and pulls it back. Therefore, there is no neutral gravity zone at 22,236 miles from earth, and your theory is disproved.

Also, the people who actually operate the geostationary satellites know that those satellites are in orbit because they know that those orbits are inclined slightly, and that they’re slightly elliptical, giving the satellites a daily apogee and perigee. Stationary objects don’t have an apogee or a perigee, nor do they have to make stationkeeping maneuvers to counteract perturbations in orbits they don’t have.

I think you’re wrong on all counts. Elliptical orbits and inclinations, due to the Lense-Thirring effect, can be attributed to a non-rotating earth framework. But again, you have totally ignored that principle throughout this discussion, and thus you keep thinking that ellipses and inclinations always prove a rotating earth.

No, but they do prove an orbiting satellite. You claim that geostationary satellites aren’t orbiting. Their orbital parameters prove otherwise.

You think I haven’t thought of this before, Gary? You think I would post a $1,000 Challenge without knowing the alternatives?

No, I think you posted your challenge wrongly believing that Kepler’s laws somehow precluded circular orbits, wrongly believing that geostationary satellites are thought to orbit in a perfect circle, and wrongly believing that the other artificial satellites have highly elliptical orbits. I don’t think you realized that you needed to account for the daily, cyclical motion of geostationary satellites (a motion that is different for each satellite). I think you were under the impression that they just sit there motionless in the sky and so you could postulate a “neutral gravity zone” to account for their lack of motion. I also think you didn’t know that satellites like the Chandra X-ray Observatory disprove the existence of such a zone by passing through that region of space once each day with no perturbation of its orbit.

The only thing I am finding out is that you’ve never even considered the alternatives until I’ve mentioned them to you. Unfortunately, you have such a visceral reaction to the concept of Geocentrism that you haven’t been able to even consider its basis in the Lense-Thirring effect, an effect which is held to by your own scientists.

As I understand it, the Lense-Thirring effect, also called “frame dragging,” states that small objects in the presence of large rotating objects are dragged along slightly by that rotation. If I have that right, then I still don’t see how that can account for the apparent daily motion of geostationary satellites and the orbit of the Chandra X-ray Observatory. You’ll have to explain to me how this force from the rotating stars can be strong enough to hold up a four-ton satellite, somehow cause it to oscillate in three dimensions (with each satellite oscillating differently), and yet not pull on the Chandra satellite, but actually push on it so as to turn it around and push it back toward earth. That’s what you have to do to salvage your theory. Good luck.

I think what you’re finding out is that proving the earth rotates is not as easy as you once thought it to be.

Depends on who I’m trying to prove it to, I suppose.

Perhaps you don’t know what “Proof” is. “Proof” is not just offering a scenario that seems to work. “Proof” is when you eliminate all other possibilities, and have the verifiable evidence that only your system will work, now or in the future.

I have offered evidence that eliminates your system. I have shown that geostationary satellites are not standing still, but are in slightly elliptical, slightly inclined orbits, causing them to have an apparent daily cyclical motion in three dimensions (north-south, east-west, in-out). I’ve also shown you a satellite (GOES 2) that traces out a big figure-eight every day. Your system can’t account for that. Neither can your system, which claims that these satellites are hovering, account for the fact that they don’t fall. I have shown that your explanation of this phenomenon is not possible, given the orbit of the Chandra X-ray Observatory. If you can’t show how your system accounts for these facts, then your system has been disproved.

Moreover, you keep contradicting yourself. On the one hand you claim that the sun and moon have no effect on the satellites, yet, on the other hand, in your system, it is the sun that keeps the earth and other planets in orbit, whose gravitational attraction extends to Pluto 3 billion miles away. How is it possible to have the sun’s gravity weak and strong at the same time, Gary?

It’s simple. In earth orbit, the sun’s gravitational pull on a satellite is weak compared to the earth’s gravitational pull on that satellite. That’s why the Space Shuttle doesn’t get yanked out of orbit and sucked into the sun.

It is becoming quite obvious that you make the sun and stars weak or strong depending on what you are arguing at the time.

No, what’s becoming quite obvious is that you don’t seem to be able to understand Newton’s Law of Universal Gravitation. Even if you disagree with that law, you should at least be able to recognize that my arguments are consistent with it, and that I am not contradicting myself. As I’ve said several times now, the gravitational attraction of the sun is weak or strong depending on the mass of the object it’s pulling on, and its distance from that object. The sun is strong enough to make the earth orbit it, but its effect on you is negligible. Otherwise you would be much lighter during the day (when the sun is overhead) and much heavier at night (when the sun is on the other side of the earth, pulling you down).

First, as I said earlier, Chandra actually disproves your model, since it shows the necessity of having a significantly elliptisized orbit in the original Keplerian dimensions, the same as the orbits of the other non-GSS satellites closer to the earth.

I’ve already shown how completely wrong that statement is.

Second, Chandra is controlled in its orbit, just like Voyager 1 or any of the other satellites in the solar system are directed to different courses. It is operated at Cambridge Massachusetts, 24 hours per day, from dishes located in California, Spain and Australia. The operator tells Chandra where to point and what to look at.

Rotating the satellite about its center of gravity to point it this way or that doesn’t alter its orbit.

It takes Chandra 2.5 days to circle the earth. At its closest point it is 13,000 miles from earth; at its furthest point it is 80,000 miles from earth. It takes thousands of people all over the world to keep Chandra working and on course.

It takes lots of people to tell Chandra which way to point and to analyze the data it collects, but gravity keeps it on course. If you don’t believe that, consider the Combined Release and Radiation Effects Satellite (CRRES). Its orbit is extremely elliptical, like Chandra’s, and it’s been following that orbit all by itself ever since radio contact with the satellite was lost on October 12, 1991.

Third, you haven’t proven that the stars don’t affect Chandra. If you agree that earth’s gravity must somehow be counterbalanced by Chandra, then according to Lense-Thirring I can just turn that around and say that Chandra must counterbalance the effect of the stars in its travels.

You’re completely missing the point. Your system has to account for both the geostationary satellites and Chandra. If there’s a gravitational equilibrium point at 22,236 miles that holds the geostationary satellites up, then how can earth’s gravity be strong enough to reverse Chandra’s direction when it’s four times farther out than the supposed equilibrium point? If earth’s gravity can turn Chandra around from 86,487 miles out, why isn’t it much stronger at only 22,236 miles? Why doesn’t it pull the geostationary satellites down?

Fifth, in my last post I have also said that the 22,236 mile band could be an electro-magnetic field. Since we have such things as the Van Allen belts which are electro-magnetic fields above the earth and which contain charged protons and electrons, positing that there is an electromagnetic field at 22,236 miles is not out of the question.

How absurdly improbable does something have to be before we can consider it “out of the question”? That this field should be located at exactly the right altitude and be exactly strong enough to simulate orbital motion around a rotating earth is way too much of a coincidence for me. But even if I were willing to swallow such an improbable explanation, the fact that Chandra passes through that area of space every day with no effect on its orbit proves that there’s no unusual force there. Further, as I’ve said several times, this explanation doesn’t account for the daily cyclical motion of geostationary satellites.

Saying “Lense-Thirring,” as if it were a one-size-fits-all answer to any problem isn’t going to cut it. You need to demonstrate how that effect accounts for the motion we observe, and not just the motion of one satellite, but all of them. If you can’t do that, then I’ve said all I have to say on this subject.

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3