Flat Earther spends $20,000 on DIY experiment that accidentally proved the planet is ROUND
(www.dailymail.co.uk)
🌏 Sphere World 🌎
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Within normal expectations, the Earth is round. It has a slight oblateness due to rotational effects. There is an even slighter "pear-shaped-ness" due to the facts of life, but we are well below the level at which anything would be noticeable on a basketball-sized globe. There are higher order terms varying in latitude and longitude, relevant for low-Earth orbit determination.
The 4/3-Earth propagation model is a handy approximation to the atmospheric refraction of radio waves, but it is valid only at low altitude and low elevation angles. The refraction effect dwindles with increasing altitude. I don't think that visible light and radio have identical refraction effects, though they could be close.
We're on the same page. I am also an aeronautical / astronautical engineer.
You are correct. Just wanted to make it more layman friendly. Good to find a fellow Astro person. Love your handle. It was one of my many program initiatives while at the Pentagon.
My last hurrah was YAL-1A. Successful target engagement on 11 Feb 2010. Not that I pushed any buttons, but I did edit the winning proposal and did preliminary designs in the 1970s.
Cool.! I was the driving force behind several directed energy initiatives. I was also the guy behind a lot of other what I call "cool toys".
My connection was mostly through the SDIO and Air Force programs. Did you perhaps ever encounter Colonel Roger Lenard? I also worked in the area of kinetic energy weapons. At Boeing, we developed the Lightweight Exo-Atmospheric Projectile (LEAP), which was the first 3-axis-stabilized solid-propellant KEW (successfully flight-tested in laboratory). We weren't able to market it and had to let it lapse. The Thiokol propulsion technology was picked up by Hughes, which was later absorbed into Raytheon. The Standard SM-3 warhead is a spitting image of our 2nd-generation design concept.