NASA’S “NONROTATING FLAT EARTH” DESCRIPTION EXPLAINED
(No it doesn’t mean the Earth is flat)
This is what happens when you skip to the last page of a several hundred page document and pick out a couple words that fit your predetermined narrative.
The “Nonrotating Flat Earth” descriptions are model calculations in order to determine the average flight expectancies throughout a launch cycle.
“Equations for a rocket over a spherical, nonrotating Earth is presented”
“Where E is the ratio of the atmospheric scale height to the radius of the Earth“
We use the same type of thing in land surveying. Determining a scale factor allows you to convert coordinates from surface (3D) to grid (2D).
“This process involved averaging the vacuum trajectory and solving anew the zeroth-order two-point boundary value problem”
“A last point about these results is that the inclusion of the rotation of the Earth”
Its being used to determine the best average, that’s all. The Earth is not flat.
“More sophisticated modeling, such as including an oblate Earth model and wind profiles”
“Increase the payload available at orbital insertion due to the benefits of a the rotational effects of the Earth”
Can we please end this now??
