The Roundworld Conspiracy, Introduction

In my previous entry, I explained that I had been asked to review a series of YouTube videos by Mark Sargent. In these he attempts to outline a series of “clues” that, in his estimation, point to one irrefutable conclusion:

That the Earth is in fact flat, and enclosed in a massive dome.


Sargent breaks his argument into a dozen parts, and for the sake of convenience I'm going to tackle his points in that order.

Introduction

One of his first points is that you can't prove the shape of the Earth without getting far enough from it to actually see the shape. Of course, a lot of the things scientists have evidence for are things that nobody's ever actually seen - the whole time he discusses nuclear weapons, Sargent never once questions the existence of the atom. Nobody can actually watch electrons flowing along wires, but Sargent uses modern electronics to present his argument. Much of the scientific process is simply taking measurements of the things we can observe and mathematically extrapolating those measurements to create a model of how they work. If this model can be used to make predictions, which in turn prove reliable, then the model is accepted as a valid theory and becomes the basis for further progress. It was this process that initially gave us our view of the Earth as a sphere (later revised to an oblate spheroid, since our spin causes us to bulge around the equator). Of course, much later we did manage to get the necessary altitude for a better look, and saw for ourselves that we were right.

Speaking of nuclear weapons, he also claims that the High-Altitude detonations of the late 50s and early 60s were not mere tests of the technology, but a mad rush by the United States and Soviet Union to break through the dome, or at least determine its extent and strength. No hint hear as to whether anyone thought through what that could mean. Why would "The Authority" (which he continually references throughout the series, with no explanation) worry about debris, the sky itself literally falling on the people they govern, and without whom they are powerless? Minor details.

He makes brief references to exploration of Antarctica, (in his model, not a continent but the ring around the world we know which hides the barrier), and an assumption about human psychology. I'll get to these later, (and even give him a break on attributing the problem specifically to human males).

He also talks about NASA keeping a tight rein on space exploration - that any attempts by private organizations would be suppressed or "taken into the NASA fold".

I guess billionaires don't count.

The guys in these photos are Elon Musk and Richard Branson.

Branson is the founder of Virgin Group, which in addition to cell phones and airlines, is working on commercial "Space Tourism", where they'll basically take you into a low orbit and let you get a glimpse of what the astronauts see. Admittedly, their maiden voyage has been delayed many times, but far from supressing their efforts, NASA has promised them government research contracts once they get into space. After all, their method will be uniquely cost effective, once they hammer out the kinks.

Musk owns SpaceX, which uses a method much closer to the traditional style of NASA themselves, and have quickly managed to put automated vessels into orbit. Once again, NASA has granted them contracts, paying them for tasks that would cost the taxpayers much more money if they were handled in-house. SpaceX has done and will continue to do a lot of work with the US government, because they have a lot of work to be done. But business-minded Musk didn't stop there. They are also doing a lot of work with private corporations, such as placing communications satellites in orbit. The only government connection there is in the licensing.

And all of this misses another pretty big detail: NASA is not the world's only government space program. There are many nations with such programs, not all of which share a close bond with Sargent's homeland.

Finally, Sargent breaks down his arguments into three questions for us to consider:

1. Where's the fourth wall? Basically, in all of the space flights so far, why "is there no exterior shot where the astronaut completes the simple act of panning the camera 180 degrees, let along [sic] a full 360 sweep"?
2. Why are there no images of the whole Earth, except for admitted composites, from multiple shots of smaller regions?
3. Why are there no direct flights across long distances in the southern hemisphere, instead forcing passengers to make a number of smaller hops along convoluted routes, far from their desired heading?

Well, let's see:

1. Yup, you're right, there is no fourth wall. Or a third for that matter. Or a second, or even first. It’s just the Earth drifting in the vast emptiness of space. Such footage might exist, but why would it be published? It wouldn't be interesting. You'd be very lucky to get a decent view of the Earth and another celestial object, and there would be so much empty space that it could easily be argued that it was edited together post-production. I don’t know where Mr. Sargent’s “statistics will tell you this would have already happened…” comes from, but even if it has, nobody is under any obligation to post every second of footage for the world to see. I didn't bother to look too hard for such footage myself, because the argument doesn't seem to have much merit.
2. This is an easy one. There certainly are images of the whole Earth, but to get the whole thing in frame, you have to get so far out that even with today's most advanced HD cameras, you're not going to get much detail, especially through cloud cover. But the images do exist, and in fact sometimes they're assembled into time-lapse video. See my previous post for a few samples.
3. This one is covered in more detail later, so I'll just summarize my initial reaction here: Those are very long routes over open ocean. Details and connector flights provide more opportunities for profit, which is the only reason commercial air travel exists.

That's a lot of material to cover, and we're only at the end of the Introduction, there are 11 more videos! Some of the subsequent sections will be shorter, I promise, but I'm going to have to end this entry here for now. Come back in a few days when I tackle Part 1: The Empty Theatre.