> > Neil, are you a BA'er also? If so, who are you there? > Yes Gary I have lurked over there for some time although I rarely post. I go > by my initials NGR. So you're NGR. You're a diplomatic sort, for sure. "...would appear to be inappropriate." For the record, the only instructions I ever got was a warning early on from the BA himself not to attack other people, only their ideas. If there were any instructions to completely obliterate the Bible and any logic derived therefrom from all BA posts, the BA himself did not say that. > > > I think I am beginning to see this figure eight now, though it is a tough > > one to visualize. What do you think of Jack's bringing up the analemma? It is interesting, I'd say, but I don't know enough about the analemma to compare it to the figure eight of the satellites. > > If the orbits of geosynchronous satellites are not 100% stable, as you > > said, > > are they 100% stable for geostationary satellites? Why wouldn't the same > > earth density forces, as well as the moon attraction you mentioned, affect > > geostationary satellites? What is so special about them that they can > > withstand these forces? > > As I said in my first post a geostationary satellite is a special case of > geosynchronous satellite and they are affected by the same forces. When the > technicians send up the satellite they aim to have it stationary in the sky > to meet its communication or weather gathering purpose. The whole idea is to > have it hover over one spot on the earths surface but due to the various > forces I mentioned previously there is a tendancy for the satellite to > drift. The satellite controllers use the small jets on the satellite to > nudge it back into position when it drifts outside of acceptable parameters. > That drift distance is decided upon by the technicians and could be a small > distance or a larger distance depending on the operation parameters of the > satellite. I would surmise by this that there is no perfectly steady geostationary satellites, right? You make it sound like it's a hit or miss proposition when launching the geostationary satellites. I imagine each one costs a monumental amount of money. How could they keep sending them up there if they weren't achieving purposeful objectives? Are they really so helpless as to the final location of their satellite orbits? And what advantage for the geostationary satellites, is there? I mean, if the regular geosynchronous satellites have a continental sized "footprint", what could be better than that? Why would they even attempt to make them geostationary in the first place? > To be technically accurate a geostationary satellite would need > to be fixed in the sky and the only way that can occur is if it is directly > over the equator in a perfectly circular orbit and at zero inclination with > the equator. I've been wondering the following for awhile. Aren't there any geosynchronous satellites orbiting at a latitude flatly and parallel with the equator? You made it sound like these do not exist. But why would any orbit off the equator automatically mean an orbit inclined to the equator? A satellite could be 22,200 miles from, say, the Tropic of Cancer just as well as the equator, couldn't it? Why wouldn't a flat orbit there be geo-stationary only higher in the sky? > > I guess in my suspicious moments I think things like the government is > > placing these satellites doing figure eights just so they can't be > > followed > > as easily. Like, perhaps the whole figure eight is to scramble Howard > > Stern? > > > > uh....ha. > Steady Gary conspiracy theories are usually a dead end in critical thinking. Ah well, you're right. I was joking. I just think it's ironically telling of our society that Howard Stern will be a big star from heaven. Is the next step to have him and others beam directly into our heads? Sincerely, Gary Shelton GaryLShelton@xxxxxxxxxxx