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dv82matt
SFN Regular
760 Posts |
 Posted - 07/12/2007 : 15:32:53 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by JEROME DA GNOME
The question stands: Does the publicized commercial technology represent the pinnacle of our ability? |
No, did anyone claim that it did? Arguments from ignorance carry very little weight.
The question sits. |
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Cuneiformist
The Imperfectionist
USA
4955 Posts |
Posted - 07/12/2007 : 15:50:13 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by JEROME DA GNOME
The question stands: Does the publicized commercial technology represent the pinnacle of our ability? |
No, it doesn't stand. As Dave answered here, to get the sort of imagery you're claiming, you'd need to have a telescope with a diameter larger than 13 football fields. Do you recall anything of that size being launched into space? |
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HalfMooner
Dingaling
Philippines
15831 Posts |
Posted - 07/12/2007 : 17:26:33 [Permalink]
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Jerome, this isn't a case where your paranoia and handwaving about fantastical secret abilities of spy agencies can carry the day for you. There are real physical restraints, as Dave pointed out. Reading newsprint from orbit is physically impossible, given our orbital boosting capability. That mountain-sized spacecraft in "Independence Day"? Fictional, like the canals of Mars. End of story.
Don't bother digging yourself a deeper hole.
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“Biology is just physics that has begun to smell bad.” —HalfMooner
Here's a link to Moonscape News, and one to its Archive. |
| Edited by - HalfMooner on 07/12/2007 17:28:17 |
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JohnOAS
SFN Regular
Australia
800 Posts |
Posted - 07/12/2007 : 17:56:04 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by JEROME DA GNOME
We have cameras that can read a newspaper I am reading sitting on a park bench.
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I have a friend that is an officer in the pentagon and I assure you that a newspaper can be read from space. |
Sure, providing you take the newspaper with you, when you go into space.
Oh, hang on, I guess if you "assure" us, it must be true.
Originally posted by JEROME DA GNOME
The question stands: Does the publicized commercial technology represent the pinnacle of our ability? |
No one has said that this is necessarily the case. However, proving that the resolution required is available to requires one of two things.
1. Someone with this this secret knowledge (which they probably won't be willing/able to confirm) coming forward, or
2. Us taking your assertion as fact.
The first is stupid. the second is, well, stupid.
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John's just this guy, you know. |
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JEROME DA GNOME
BANNED
2418 Posts |
Posted - 07/12/2007 : 18:49:12 [Permalink]
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All I have left to say is pitiful.
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What a man believes upon grossly insufficient evidence is an index into his desires -- desires of which he himself is often unconscious. If a man is offered a fact which goes against his instincts, he will scrutinize it closely, and unless the evidence is overwhelming, he will refuse to believe it. If, on the other hand, he is offered something which affords a reason for acting in accordance to his instincts, he will accept it even on the slightest evidence. The origin of myths is explained in this way. - Bertrand Russell |
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dv82matt
SFN Regular
760 Posts |
Posted - 07/12/2007 : 19:10:54 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by JEROME DA GNOME
All I have left to say is pitiful. |
Much of what you've had to say has been pitiful since long before now. But still, I do congratulate you on this encouraging epiphany of yours.  |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 07/12/2007 : 19:14:55 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by JohnOAS
Originally posted by JEROME DA GNOME
The question stands: Does the publicized commercial technology represent the pinnacle of our ability? |
No one has said that this is necessarily the case. However, proving that the resolution required is available to requires one of two things.
1. Someone with this this secret knowledge (which they probably won't be willing/able to confirm) coming forward, or
2. Us taking your assertion as fact.
The first is stupid. the second is, well, stupid. |
Actually, John, it goes beyond that. Proving that the resolution required is available requires a demonstration that the laws of physics as we know them are wrong.
The "secret knowledge" must be nothing less than a complete re-write of how telescopes work, at their most basic level. To be able to orbit something with nearly 1,000 times the resolution of Hubble without amateur astronomers the world over collectively asking, "what the hell is that thing?" would completely change what we know about optics, and therefore light, and therefore almost all of physics. "Earth-shattering" doesn't begin to describe what a profound difference it would make.
The real answer is simple: Jerome's friend in the Pentagon (if he/she exists) was making a fool of Jerome, because it's easy to do.
By the way, Hubble, with 0.1 arcsecond resolution orbiting at 589 km could resolve 11.2" (28.5 cm) features here on Earth - if doing so wouldn't fry its CCDs. The stadium seats would still be blurred together. This sort of resolution wouldn't even allow you to read a street sign from orbit.
In fact, to read the main text of a newspaper with a telescope like Hubble, it couldn't be more than about 206 meters away (and with almost an eight-foot mirror, it'd be pretty obvious). So unless Dude knows of a special SR-71 that can tote around a primary larger than the plane's wingspan (I don't even know of an SR-71 capable of carrying Hubble's 2.4-meter main mirror), his "reading a newspaper" claim is busted, too.
Most likely, the claim refered to headlines. A telescope the size of Hubble could read a headline - assuming half-centimeter resolution is needed - from 103 kilometers. A ten-inch telescope could read such a headline from about six miles. There's the spy-plane-type gadget, right there.
But it'd still be easier, cheaper, safer and faster to have an operative in that particular country just go buy a newspaper and read the headlines. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 07/12/2007 : 19:24:08 [Permalink]
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| Furthermore, at the distance of the Moon, Hubble's pixels are 604 feet across. I recall the landers being much smaller than that. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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Cuneiformist
The Imperfectionist
USA
4955 Posts |
Posted - 07/12/2007 : 19:35:49 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by JEROME DA GNOME
All I have left to say is pitiful.
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If we needed any more evidence that Jerome is here simply to argue for argument's sake, and doesn't actually believe half the shit he claims, it's in this post. |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
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dv82matt
SFN Regular
760 Posts |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
Posted - 07/12/2007 : 20:13:11 [Permalink]
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Originally posted by dv82matt
Originally posted by Dave W.
Proving that the resolution required is available requires a demonstration that the laws of physics as we know them are wrong. |
I wouldn't go that far. The aperture (baseline) need not be physical.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astronomical_interferometer |
Actually, yes, it does. Sure, you could synthesize an aperture of 1,000 meters with just two one-meter telescopes, but they'd still need to be 1,000 meters apart.
In orbit, a lot of little 'scopes spread out over 1,350 meters would get you the required angular resolution to read a newspaper, but due to different amounts of gravity and atmosphere tugging on them, the only way you'd get the required pointing accuracy to achieve that resolution would be to physically tie them all together with rigid beams.
In other words, there'd still be a 4,400-foot thing floating in orbit. And since the pitifully small-by-comparison 191-foot International Space Station can be photographed as it crosses in front of the Sun, imagine the outcry at the "secret" monster telescope used to read a newspaper from orbit. |
- Dave W. (Private Msg, EMail)
Evidently, I rock!
Why not question something for a change?
Visit Dave's Psoriasis Info, too. |
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pleco
SFN Addict
USA
2998 Posts |
Posted - 07/12/2007 : 20:43:56 [Permalink]
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| In other words, there'd still be a 4,400-foot thing floating in orbit. And since the pitifully small-by-comparison 191-foot International Space Station can be photographed as it crosses in front of the Sun, imagine the outcry at the "secret" monster telescope used to read a newspaper from orbit. |
That's where the cloaking device comes in handy. I have friend who works somewhere who told me that those things are used. Trust me. Here's a photo:
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by Filthy
The neo-con methane machine will soon be running at full fart. |
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| Edited by - pleco on 07/12/2007 20:46:30 |
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Dave W.
Info Junkie
USA
26022 Posts |
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Dude
SFN Die Hard
USA
6891 Posts |
Posted - 07/12/2007 : 21:14:25 [Permalink]
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Dave_W said:
So unless Dude knows of a special SR-71 that can tote around a primary larger than the plane's wingspan (I don't even know of an SR-71 capable of carrying Hubble's 2.4-meter main mirror), his "reading a newspaper" claim is busted, too.
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I recall having seen pics from SR-71 cameras that you can read nametags on uniforms.
I'll also add that I have no actual data on how far away those pics were taken from.
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Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong.
-- Thomas Jefferson
"god :: the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument." - G. Carlin
Hope, n.
The handmaiden of desperation; the opiate of despair; the illegible signpost on the road to perdition. ~~ da filth |
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