So far, whenever someone has said that sustained space flight is impossible here, they have said nothing to back up their claims. Even the FAQ:
Q: "What about satellites? How do they orbit the Earth?"
A: Since sustained spaceflight is not possible, satellites cannot orbit the Earth. The signals we supposedly receive from them are either broadcast from towers or any number of possible pseudolites. However, temporary space-flight is possible.
Now, I'm going to go ahead and put it out there that these satellites do exist, since I can and have observed them with my own eyes, and you can too if you know where to look:
http://www.heavens-above.com/According to our Round Earth theory, satellites stay in place due to orbiting at a high enough speed where the centripetal force cancels out gravity. Now I'm sure you're wondering how this accounts for satellites in geosynchronous orbit. GEO satellites are 22,236 mi above Earth. As you may know, acceleration due to gravity is lessened the further away you are from Earth. I punched this into Wolfram Alpha and had it do the math for me:
gravitational acceleration | 22236 miles
total field | 0.22428 m/s[sup]2[/sup] (meters per second squared)
angular deviation from local vertical | 0.02713° (degrees)
down component | 0.22428 m/s[sup]2[/sup] (meters per second squared)
west component | 0 m/s[sup]2[/sup] (meters per second squared)
south component | 1.1×10[sup]-4[/sup] m/s[sup]2[/sup] (meters per second squared)
(based on EGM2008 12th order model; at specified altitude above natural elevation)Now, this 0.22428 m/s
2 acceleration happens to be exactly the force that would be exerted on the satellite by centripetal force from orbiting around Earth once a day (thus appearing in the same place to ground observers).
I am not sure about your definition of sustained space flight, but this meets my two criteria:
- Is in space.
- Will stay there for a good bit.
Now, the most important part of this is that it works only with a round Earth. There is no way to get centripetal force for something hovering above Earth in circles, and the existence of geosynchronous earth orbit satellites would require that the satellite be perfectly still under a flat Earth. This would be impossible, since that 0.22428 m/s
2 would not be being counteracted by anything, and the satellite would either fall to the ground or be pulled by gravity towards something else. I'd say the latter, since under your theory the satellite would be 19,000 miles above the stars.
Since I have made my case, please show me yours. Show me what undeniable proof you have that sustained space flight is impossible.