So I guess Buzz Aldrin is still brainwashed

Yay! scepti's back!  Saviour of the forum.

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Heiwa's site is well presented.

lol, now I know you are taking the piss.

AusGeoff is Scepti's alt so this should be good.

I only suggest that people who are incontrovertibly deranged—such as Anders Björkman—be banned before they further drag down the already dubious credibility of the flat earth forums.

In a couple of words, the guy is pathologically delusional.

You do realize that some RE'ers feel the same way about you, don't you?

AusGeoff is Scepti's alt so this should be good.

Ooooh... lookee here.  My very, very favourite stalker is back!

I've already asked poor old Rama Set to put me on his IGNORE list a couple of times, but it seems he just can't resist reading and responding to my comments.  Maybe he's secretly a fan of mine?  Or hopes to pick up some scientific know-how by default?

—Go for it son.

You do realize that some RE'ers feel the same way about you, don't you?

And I should care?  Nope.  Sorry.  No joy there.

Thanks to the man himself, Björkman has just proved he's a liar and a fraudster.

On his linked page, he says he's a "M.Sc. Naval Architect and Marine Engineer".  Only problem?  This is just another of his fairy stories.  He's not an engineer of any sort, nor does he hold any sort of accredited academic qualifications.  His only "qualification" is that he's one of the most renowned conspiracy theorists on the interwebs.

At any rate, these lies have already been exposed on numerous other forums.  Please don't waste your bandwidth trying to have any sort of intelligent debate with the guy;  it's like philosophising with a 6-year-old about Santa Claus... but even more pointless.

AusGeoff, you're really starting to irritate me because now you're making me defend Heiwa. The fact that he's a dishonest and probably delusional crank has been made abundantly clear on this and other fora. But why do you insist that he doesn't have a degree in Naval Architecture? I would seriously like to see evidence of this; do you have any?

Oh, give me a break. The Ariane V doesn't take 5x more fuel for the same launch, it takes 5x more fuel because it is designed for launching huge payloads. Its what us rocket people call an 'Ultra-Heavy' variant. Basically super beefed up to carry a lot more weight. Good for launching interplanetary missions, I.S.S. components, etc. You obviously know nothing about rocket science because if you did you could do some basic calculations and discover that all currently in service rocket designs, can in fact accomplish their orbits. All you have to do is calculate the ∆ velocity required to lift it's payload into orbit, then use the bell shape to calculate the thrust, and the propellant used to find the specific impulse, and from that you can find the tonnage of fuel required to meet the ∆v requirement. It's high school level math, at most. But obviously doing any actual research is beyond you, because you are totally misinformed on all aspects of space flight. And the fact that you believe signing a form would keep the millions of people involved with the space program silent is foolish at best and willfully ignorant at worst. All of the space agencies and corporations around the whole world, and all the supporting infrastructure and industry, and not one of them has tried to confess this massive conspiracy? No. Bollocks. Even if they could do that, what about the U.S.S.R.? Why has no one confessed the lies they made for a country they hate and brought down? The real lies the Soviets made have already been confessed. Ex: Failed attempts before Gagarin, feigned launches, assassinating pilots, etc. So obviously these people are willing to tell the dead bear's secrets, then why would they stop themselves with those few? It doesn't make sense. But I don't think you've thought that far, because you didn't even think far enough to realize that you don't even know how the space shuttle works. It uses external fuel and boosters to make it to orbit, uses it's onboard fuel todo any orbital maneuvers or docking, releases it's cargo, then fores retrograde rockets and falls back down. When it enters the atmosphere, it enters a shallow descent with a high pitch to angle the heat shield to block reentry heating, then once it has slowed down to stable speeds, it glides down to the runway and lands like a normal plane from a normal altitude. Of course, the space shuttle weighs a lot more than a regular plane so it deploys drag parachutes to stop it on the runway. I would say 'not exactly rocket science', but it is.

If you study my web page you'll find that I am a great fan of the French Arianne 5 rocket and its engine. Of course it requires five times more fuel to put a little satellite in orbit than many NASA rocket but it seems to work.

I think that you have that backwards.  It's the shuttle used about 5x more fuel than the Ariane 5 (if you're such a fan, you should at least learn how to spell it) to place a somewhat larger payload into low earth orbit (24,400kg for shuttle vs 21,000kg for Ariane 5ES).

Evidently you cannot recuperate any satellite as they are flying too fast after launch.

Huh?  The space shuttle was used for a number of satellite repair and recovery missions, including 5 repair missions to the the Hubble Space Telescope and recovery of the Long Duration Exposure Facility

It appears many US rocket launches are fake, i.e. the rocket was an empty mock up with no payload at all, e.g. all Shuttle launches. The very heavy US Shuttles never were in space and never served the International Fake Space Station, IFSS, that therefore does not exist.
The many re-entries of the Shuttles are also fake. Imagine flying backwards trying to brake when landing starting with 9000 m/s speed at high altitude. A joke. All videos of people on the IFSS are another joke. You wonder how they can go on and on with it?
Of course they were cheated to join NASA/JPL at good salaries and then forced to sign a secrecy agreement so they could not tell what is going on.

Do you have any actual evidence for any of these claims, or should I just take your word for it?

Anyway, you still haven't answered my question: what, if any, parts of large rockets do you believe are real?

But why do you insist that he doesn't have a degree in Naval Architecture? I would seriously like to see evidence of this; do you have any?

Because there's nothing more than his own claims that he's got a Masters in "Naval Architecture" or is an "engineer".  He's not once been able to produce any accredited evidence from any institute of learning that supports these claims.  And he's been asked to do so on literally dozens of sites.  He's also been banned from the JREF forum for repeatedly breaking its rules—and it takes a massively moronic individual to earn that sort of ban on the JREF site.

—And no: I can't produce any evidence in support of my claims about his fraudulent "qualifications".  Logic says that one cannot prove a negative.

The sole reason Björkman infiltrates sites such as this is to further his own dubious cause, and/or to further massage his enormous  ego.  Which is why I suggested earlier on that the site would be better off without his input.  (I won't use the word "ban" again as it seems to trigger an exaggerated negative response form a few members here LOL.)

There's no rule or axiom in logic that says you can't prove a negative. That's a common misconception. In many cases it's unfeasible, but in this case, I think it would be sufficient to contact Chalmers University in Sweden and check if Anders ever attended and graduated. At any rate, proof of credentials is not strictly necessary for debate. He may well have a Naval Architecture and Engineering degree; that's irrelevant. If he does, it still doesn't qualify him as a Structural engineer, which he's been referred to as, nor does it give him much credibility with regards to aerospace engineering. And even if he's lying about his degree, that isn't relevant either. There are many good reasons why he's wrong about nearly everything, but his education isn't one of them. You can weigh the strength of his arguments on their own (rather dubious) merits whether he's a liar or not. If you want to get technical about it, dismissing his arguments about the Apollo program on the basis of him lying about his background is an Ad Hominem fallacy, since it attacks Heiwa himself, not his argument.

As to whether the site would be better off without him, I don't see how you can judge that. What are your criteria as to what makes the site better or worse? How is he affecting that criteria? In case you haven't noticed, this site has a number of colourful characters. I don't know what you envision for the FES, but I can't picture it without them. It's been said that cranks are good for starting revolutions. In the case of the FES, I'd say they at least keep the wheels turning.

Thanks to the man himself, Björkman has just proved he's a liar and a fraudster.

On his linked page, he says he's a "M.Sc. Naval Architect and Marine Engineer".  Only problem?  This is just another of his fairy stories.  He's not an engineer of any sort, nor does he hold any sort of accredited academic qualifications.  His only "qualification" is that he's one of the most renowned conspiracy theorists on the interwebs.

At any rate, these lies have already been exposed on numerous other forums.  Please don't waste your bandwidth trying to have any sort of intelligent debate with the guy;  it's like philosophising with a 6-year-old about Santa Claus... but even more pointless.

Also, his company doesn't really exist. There are two shitty, shitty websites (for a firm that does international shipping? Really?) that double as conspiracy theory websites and apparently also sell his books. Other than that there's a facebook page with one like and some business information on websites that collect any such information that's put in without verifying.

If it was a real company I would have to wonder why this exists:
http://www.heiwa.co.jp/

There's also a Heiwa Shokai Co. (owned and operated by a person with a Japanese name) that does naval contracts of some sort.

He has at least published books though.
https://catalog.wmu.se/cgi-bin/koha/opac-detail.pl?biblionumber=12486&query_desc=%28su%3A{Passenger%20ships}%29

I have to wonder how someone who works in shipping would be unable to explain navigation and travel times.

https://sites.google.com/site/wtc7lies/home/anders-bjorkman-s-world

His conctact information from his website gives this address:
6, rue Victor Hugo, F 06 240 Beausoleil, France
Pop that into Google Maps and go to street view.

He may well have a Naval Architecture and Engineering degree; that's irrelevant...

Uh... no it's not.  Björkman repeatedly mentions that fact in every one of his pages.  It's intended as an appeal to authority, but is actually a false appeal (as you've noted).  And that false appeal to authority is intended to give more veracity to his bizarre drivel than it deserves.

I'm also not sure as to why you've defended him—as an individual—twice now?  Björkman is nothing more than a fraudster who's ripped off thousands of people selling his silly books filled with nothing more than the self-serving and distorted opinions of a deranged mind.

And if you claim that—apparently—you can prove a negative, try this one:  I claim that leprechauns do not exist.

—Go for it.

I really don't like the ad hominem here. 

I really don't like the ad hominem here.

I'm not sure that you understand what an ad hominem is; at any rate, I seldom use it as an argument.

Or are you maybe suggesting that Anders Björkman is not a fraudster, but is instead a fine, upstanding citizen doing his best to educate an ignorant population for little or no financial reward?

Geoff, I'm actually defending you here. Sorry that was out of context, I was referring to how everyone was insulting you rather than your argument.

So much so that this thread has devolved into apes slinging shit at each other.

Quote from: Blacksmith on August 28, 2014, 11:31:57 AM

I really don't like the ad hominem here.

I'm not sure that you understand what an ad hominem is; at any rate, I seldom use it as an argument.

Or are you maybe suggesting that Anders Björkman is not a fraudster, but is instead a fine, upstanding citizen doing his best to educate an ignorant population for little or no financial reward?

This is why I say you make bad arguments ausGeoff. Whether he is a "fraudster" or whatever has nothing to do with whether his arguments about Apollo, 9/11 etc. are correct or not. That's what Ad Hominem means. I and others want to know what he has to say about rockets and how he thinks they work. With regards to that, I could care less what school he did or didn't attend. His actual arguments are the only thing that is relevant here.

I totally agree though, that he's a liar and a cheat, as I've said before.

Quote from: Shmeggley on August 28, 2014, 10:38:57 AM

He may well have a Naval Architecture and Engineering degree; that's irrelevant...

Uh... no it's not.  Björkman repeatedly mentions that fact in every one of his pages.  It's intended as an appeal to authority, but is actually a false appeal (as you've noted).  And that false appeal to authority is intended to give more veracity to his bizarre drivel than it deserves.

I'm also not sure as to why you've defended him—as an individual—twice now?  Björkman is nothing more than a fraudster who's ripped off thousands of people selling his silly books filled with nothing more than the self-serving and distorted opinions of a deranged mind.

And if you claim that—apparently—you can prove a negative, try this one:  I claim that leprechauns do not exist.

—Go for it.

It's more like "did this particular leprechaun attend this particular school at this particular date?". That is just a matter of record keeping and is trivial to verify one way or the other, assuming the school still exists and kept proper records.

As to whether leprechauns exist, "proof" is not what we're after, at least in the sense of a deductively valid argument. But it's silly to say that no one can offer any evidence that leprechauns don't exist. There are plenty of ways you can make a strong argument for their non-existence. To me it sounds like you're just cribbing a talking point commonly used by atheists who don't want to shoulder the burden of proof. Which is a good tactic, depending on what you're trying to argue. But that's totally unnecessary here. This isn't a supernatural claim that's unfalsifiable; it's actually possible to make the claim that he didn't go to Chalmers and prove it beyond a reasonable doubt, as I've explained already.

Let's take another example. There was an argument recently on this site where a user claimed that his "friend" had evidence pertaining to Foucault pendulums and how they are fake. This friend was supposedly a user on this site, he gave the username, it was checked and no history of that user was found. This was enough to establish that his claim was false.

I suggest you read this short article on proving a negative: http://departments.bloomu.edu/philosophy/pages/content/hales/articlepdf/proveanegative.pdf

I would love for all the FE'ers explain this video:

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and this video:

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The first shows clearly that they are in a no gravity situation.  the person in the video has been an advocate for education on space travel for years.  making many videos and uploading them to youtube while in space.  he has also done several interviews and such since he's been back from the ISS.  yet FL'ers claim that it's impossible to come back from space alive.  that your ship will just be burnt up in then process. 

the second video clearly shows a spherical earth from many different angles.  you can try to argue your false versions of optical/lens theory if you want.  but no matter what kind of optical/lens you are using, there is no way that it would provide the same distortion from all of these angles. 

Insciencewetrust, that is a correct point. However, the people here refuse to face it. Instead they claim that every video or photo showing a round earth is faked, and that NASA is really just a propaganda organization convincing the world that we do go to space for absolutely no reason.

To clarify, Heiwa is the one claiming any space vehicle will burn up on reentry, but he's not a flat Earther, just a general conspiracy crank. Although most FE'ers maintain all space travel is a hoax, there's still a variety of opinions on what is faked and what is real. We're still waiting for Heiwa's response on whether he thinks rockets work or not.

There are definitely times rockets don't work, but a vast majority of the time they do 

What's interesting to me is how conspiracy theorists think a crash or two means the whole industry is corrupt, and any allegedly successful results are therefore faked.

Geoff, I'm actually defending you here. Sorry that was out of context, I was referring to how everyone was insulting you rather than your argument.

My apologies to you too Blacksmith.  I misinterpreted your comment.

   

I miss Heiwa already. He was highly entertaining. Visiting his popular website is just not the same as interacting with him. 

You wont hear me complain when a complete idiot goes MIA.

What a joke.
Hes not brainwashed.
He is just under the constant threat of being killed.

And I find it bizarre that a country that was engaged in a war that cost it  58,100 lives 303,644wounded & Billions of dollars in conflict costs.

Are you familiar with Pearl Harbor? The Holocaust?

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And I find it bizarre that a country that was engaged in a war that cost it  58,100 lives 303,644wounded & Billions of dollars in conflict costs.

Are you familiar with Pearl Harbor? The Holocaust?

What do they have to do with the Viet Nam war? 

Quote from: The Ellimist on September 11, 2014, 07:29:22 PM

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And I find it bizarre that a country that was engaged in a war that cost it  58,100 lives 303,644wounded & Billions of dollars in conflict costs.

Are you familiar with Pearl Harbor? The Holocaust?

What do they have to do with the Viet Nam war? 

Markjo you are to smart to say something so dumb. The indo china war had a lot of causes and WW2 was the trigger.

Quote from: markjo on September 11, 2014, 08:00:18 PM

Quote from: The Ellimist on September 11, 2014, 07:29:22 PM

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And I find it bizarre that a country that was engaged in a war that cost it  58,100 lives 303,644wounded & Billions of dollars in conflict costs.

Are you familiar with Pearl Harbor? The Holocaust?

What do they have to do with the Viet Nam war? 

Markjo you are to smart to say something so dumb. The indo china war had a lot of causes and WW2 was the trigger.

Ah, but markjo is right. I was referring to the wrong war. I thought charles bloomington was referring to WW2, due to some mentions of atomic bombs

But the point still stands. A clear motivation for the Vietnam war was the U.S's anti-communism stance, not to divert attention from a non-existant conspiracy.