So, who wants to win 1 million Euro?

[Bob B.]

Hm, according NASA the Apollo 11 fired its rocket engine to get into permanent Moon orbit at 1500 m/s and at suitable altitude.

You have been informed that the 1500 m/s number in incorrect.  Please acknowledge this and stop repeating incorrect numbers.

I assume you agree that purpose of firing the rocket engine was to slow down? Pls advise.

Yes, the purpose of the “lunar orbit insertion” burn was to decrease the spacecraft’s velocity.

It seems ~10 tons of fuel was used for this maneuver. Do you agree? Pls advise.

The mass of propellant used is well documented and was confirmed by calculations in post #843.  Please acknowledge this.

According you, had Apollo 11 not fired its rocket, it would still go into Moon orbit

Incorrect.  No one here has said any such thing.

and, after half an orbit, Apollo 11 would escape Moon orbit again and return to Earth - free return trajectory.

Incorrect.  On a free return trajectory the spacecraft never enters lunar orbit.  In respect to the Moon the spacecraft is on a hyperbolic trajectory.

In my opinion you could never escape from Moon gravity/orbit unless you applied a new force to your space ship, e.g. by using your rocket engine.

You can escape the Moon’s gravity is you never slow down to less than escape velocity.  This is what happens in a free return hyperbolic trajectory.  Without the LOI burn the spacecraft’s velocity remains above the Moon’s escape velocity.  The spacecraft simply flies past the Moon and then escapes.

Moon gravity may change your course, pull you into orbit or pull you so you crash. Probability for a 180° course change is 0.

The spacecraft is traveling faster than lunar escape velocity, but not Earth escape velocity, that is, it is in Earth orbit.  The Moon simply provides a perturbing force that deflects the spacecraft’s trajectory.  After the spacecraft swings by the Moon, Earth gravity again becomes the dominant force and the spacecraft is once again moving in a geocentric elliptical orbit.  The Moon deflects the trajectory enough that the geocentric flight path angle is changed from positive to negative, so the spacecraft is on an inbound trajectory after its lunar encounter.

Earlier I posted the following graphic of a free retrun trajectory (click on image to enlarge):



Note that the above is the trajectory as viewed from a stationary Earth perspective.  If we view it from a stationary Moon perspective we can see that the trajectory is NOT deflected 180 degrees by the Moon.  Below is a lunar-centric view of a free return trajectory (click on image to enlarge).  The blue disk at the top is Earth’s position a TEI and the blue disk at the bottom is Earth’s position at entry interface.  The Moon is the gray disk at the origin of the axes.  The trajectory in the vicinity of the Moon is hyperbolic.

In order to win my Challenge - see post #1 - I feel you have to understand these basic questions.

I understand them just find.  You don’t.

[Bob B.]

But the 100 m across ISS is a 400 000 m altitude and cannot be seen by naked eye.

Nonsense.  Satellites much smaller than the ISS are easily seen any clear dark evening.  I've seen a hundred on them.

[Peter B]

...Moon gravity may change your course, pull you into orbit or pull you so you crash. Probability for a 180° course change is 0.

The spacecraft is traveling faster than lunar escape velocity, but not Earth escape velocity, that is, it is in Earth orbit.  The Moon simply provides a perturbing force that deflects the spacecraft’s trajectory.  After the spacecraft swings by the Moon, Earth gravity again becomes the dominant force and the spacecraft is once again moving in a geocentric elliptical orbit.  The Moon deflects the trajectory enough that the geocentric flight path angle is changed from positive to negative, so the spacecraft is on an inbound trajectory after its lunar encounter.

Earlier I posted the following graphic of a free retrun trajectory (click on image to enlarge):



Note that the above is the trajectory as viewed from a stationary Earth perspective...

Bob

Would it be possible to extend the graphic at the bottom, please. I'm interested to see where the Moon is at TLI, to see the difference between where the Moon is and the direction the spacecraft is headed. Like a cricket fielder or baseball outfielder running across the field to catch a ball travelling at 90 degrees to their path, the spacecraft heads to where the Moon will be, not where it is.

[nomuse]

But the 100 m across ISS is a 400 000 m altitude and cannot be seen by naked eye.

Nonsense.  Satellites much smaller than the ISS are easily seen any clear dark evening.  I've seen a hundred on them.

I've also seen a few things in the sky that were a mite bit further out than that.  As in, hundreds of light years.

But to give Anders some slack, I think he's talking about resolving an image.  Strangely, though, this would-be engineer doesn't bother to attempt to calculate the angular size of the ISS on a best-case visible pass...

[Bob B.]

Bob

Would it be possible to extend the graphic at the bottom, please. I'm interested to see where the Moon is at TLI, to see the difference between where the Moon is and the direction the spacecraft is headed. Like a cricket fielder or baseball outfielder running across the field to catch a ball travelling at 90 degrees to their path, the spacecraft heads to where the Moon will be, not where it is.

Redoing the animation is more work than I want to do, but I can probably produce still image showing the Moon at TLI.  I don't know when I'll get to it though.

[Bob B.]

But to give Anders some slack, I think he's talking about resolving an image.

OK, I think you're probably right.

Strangely, though, this would-be engineer doesn't bother to attempt to calculate the angular size of the ISS on a best-case visible pass...

Assuming the 100 m dimension is correct, then, when straight overhead, the ISS would be the same apparent size as Jupiter at opposition.

[Glom]

Heiwa, did you ever consider that it's a wee bit nutty to think that all manned spaceflight over the past 50 years is an ongoing fraud? Did you also consider the possibility that your issues with the concept is down to your understanding?

[raven]

Indeed. What is the motivation? If it's impossible, it's impossible, why pretend otherwise? Seems a major waste of time and effort to pretend 'Yeah, we can do that' for something most people, sadly but honestly, don't care much about.

[ka9q]

Telescope? Doubt it. Object moves too quickly. Photos of it being the ISS published are fake.

Did you even notice the mention of Thierry Legault's videos of the ISS as cited in the text you quoted? If so, did you bother to look at them, or to understand how he did it?

Did it occur to you to use standard optics formulas to see if his images are consistent with the ISS's size and distance and the resolving power of his telescope?

Oh, and have you ever heard of a newfangled device called a "computer" that can calculate so quickly that it can even keep a telescope pointed at an orbiting object like the ISS?

[Noldi400]

Maritime engineering, maybe. Orbital mechanics, not so much. I'm sure that trying to comprehend Voyager 2's "Grand Tour" would give him a migraine.

[ka9q]

Has any meteor arriving close to Earth ever got into Earth orbit and then ... WHOOPS - escaped again out of orbit - a free return?

First of all, a "meteor" is the fiery object in the act of plunging through the earth's atmosphere. Before it hits the atmosphere it's called a "meteoroid", and if it survives to hit the ground it becomes a "meteorite".

That said, the answer to your question is 'no'. However, objects from deep space regularly fly past the earth and return to deep space. One such object, 2012 DA14, will pass next month within 34,000 km of the center of the earth, closer than the satellites in geostationary orbit. But it will never enter earth orbit because it has far too much velocity; it will follow an open hyperbolic path. This is exactly what Apollo 13 did at the moon when it flew around it on April 15, 1970.

Other objects have approached the earth so closely as to actually graze the atmosphere and create a temporary fireball without losing enough energy to burn up entirely or be captured in orbit. An example is the "Great Daylight 1972 Fireball", which passed within 57 km of the earth's surface only to return to space. It was witnessed by many people in the USA and Canada.

[ka9q]

I'm sure that trying to comprehend Voyager 2's "Grand Tour" would give him a migraine.

I'm sure that trying to comprehend anything would give him a migraine. But that seems too unlikely a prospect to worry about.

But yeah, just imagine if he were to actually hear of the "gravity assist maneuver" and that it's been used routinely by dozens of spacecraft since Pioneer and Voyager proved the concept in the 1970s by converting closed elliptical solar orbits into open hyperbolic solar system escape trajectories with hardly any propellant use at all!

[raven]

From what I can gather, according to Anders* things either orbit or they move in perfect straight lines, with no possible manoeuvres in between.
*wonder if that's really his last name as it was also the last name of an Apollo 8 astronaut. Not an impossible conincidence by any stretch but still a fairly large one.

[Zakalwe]

But the 100 m across ISS is a 400 000 m altitude and cannot be seen by naked eye. I have tried with binocular w/o success.

Yes it can be seen with the naked eye.
Please show your calculations that you have used to be able to declare this. Angles subtended? Resolution of the human eye? Please also show how you have accounted for the reflective nature of some of the surfaces (you might want to look up Iridium flares too).

Telescope? Doubt it. Object moves too quickly. Photos of it being the ISS published are fake.

That, my friend, is bovine chewed grass. I presume that you know absolutely nothing about telescopes and telescope mounts? There are a number of ways of tracking Earth satellites, available to even amateurs of modest means such as myself. Free planetarium software (example Stellarium and Cartes du Ciel) all have satellite orbit data available to them, and they can interface with telescope mounts via the ASCOM standard (last night I was using this free-to-all software to find and track the Horsehead nebula to allow me to take 600-second long exposures of the same. With sub-pixel accuracy). There are also a number of free guiding programs available (for example, Craid Starkey's PHD software which is used to lock onto and follow guide stars).
Similar programs are available to allow 'scopes to lock onto and to guide a fast moving object. Here is an example of similar software being used to track aircraft:

Here's alink to the software's creators webpage:
http://www.optictracker.com/Home.html

I presume that your next wild and speculative claim is that amateur telescopes and airplanes don't exist?

I have also seen someone imaging the ISS without the benefit of a tracking telescope. He used a Dobsonian mounted Newtonian and tracked the ISS using the finder telescope. It took a fair bit of practice over a good few nights, but he managed it.

Here is a friend of mine explaining in detail how he has created his ISS images:

I suppose you are going to tell me that Dion (the guy in the video) is also a fake??? If you care to follow his detailed video then you too could try this for yourself (I bet YOU €1M that you will not try this). Or are you trying to tell me that he is lying? Your assumption that it can't be done is pretty amazing as it means that you are saying that my experience is incorrect. That is a pretty staggering claim to make.....

The ISS is fake because you cannot get down from it alive. Try to win my Challenge - see post #1.

I am now firmly of the opinion that you have suffered some sort of mental or emotional trauma that renders you incapable of assimilating the learning that others have shown you. It has been explained to you, in somewhat tedious detail, how ablative heatshields work.  I even gave you links to the original publishers of the papers on blunt-bodies and heating effects in this post:

Heating as part of hypersonic re-entry was being studied back in the 1950s as part of the research into ICBM re-entry. Harry Julian Allen in 1951, in research at Ames Research Centre, did the calculations and came up with the concept of using a "blunt-body" shape to creat a compressive "bow-wave" to create a boundary layer between the hot compressed gas of the atmosphere and the structure of the ICBM.  Allen and Eggers classified report into blunt-bodies and hypersonic heating effects was published in 1953.

Did you even see this? Can you acknowledge that you have been presented (over and over) with information on ablative heatshields and the process of compressive heating? Why then do you insist on repeating the same old balderdash over and over again?

I agree some people are pretty dumb. I have worked in the heavy industry for 45 years and for that you have to be clever. What about you?

You have been asked multiple time to show some credentials or testimonies to back these claims up. As yet, you have not. Personally, I take these claims with as much seriousness as I take your other outlandish claims.

Try to win my Challenge - see post #1.

Again, you have been asked many times to show that you have the money available and the criteria for measuring and claiming. As yet (what a shock) you have provided none of this. As such, your "Challenge" appears as groundless as all your other claims.

Maybe I saw this thing being tested in  the sky - http://news.cnet.com/8301-10797_3-57563829-235/space-station-to-test-$17-million-inflatable-room/

Maybe you did. But I thought it was your contention that the ISS was a fake?
"Oh! what a tangled web we weave; When first we practice to deceive!"

[Zakalwe]

So, Anders Björkman has €1m available for anyone to prove his challenge. As yet he has spectacularly failed to provide any evidence (credible or otherwise) of the money, of the existence of his company Heiwa Co, or provide any testimonials of any of his customers.

Please don't post personal information (like home addresses) about another person in the forum. I know it's on Heiwa's website, but it's not the kind of thing that should be shared here. - LunarOrbit

Searching on the French White Pages does list an Anders Björkman at that address.

Searching on the French registered companies Registrar finds no registered company called Heiwa. Nor does it list any Anders Björkman as an executive office of ANY French registered limited company. Of course, there are exceptions to the results listed (such as an individual "trading as". But would such parties have access to €1M and be able to throw it away on a whim?).