Talk:Mike Bara

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Explorer 1

Orbital mechanics is a tricky thing, so debunking Bara's calculations is a bit less trivial than presented. Someone on the Forum Formerly Known as BAUT did the calculations and found out that the differnce in thrust was something like 5%, as far as I can remember (in all cases, <10%), something well within the usual tolerances of solid rocket motors at the time. Try searching the forum for the thread. I had bookmarked it, but on another computer.--ZooGuard (talk) 18:24, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

TVM for the comment. Well, certainly some aspects of orbital mechanics are tricky -- like calculating the instantaneous velocity -- but the semi-major axis is simple arithmetic. Actually the velocity at entry to orbit was 4.6% excess, which is in good enough agreement with your hand-waving 5%.

Some useful formulae are in the main wiki as Orbital_speed

A technical report on Juno is online (search string Juno_Final_Report), with many useful things including the launch profile (showing that, at first-stage burnout, the stack was already at altitude and traveling horizontally -- thus any "anti-gravity effect" is meaningless). The report also discusses variability in solid fuel thrust, justifying the general consensus that 5% excess energy is easily accounted for by this factor. There is no need whatever to hypothesize any paranormal nonsense. Ithaca (talk) 21:10, 12 July 2013 (UTC)

Adam Parfrey

An unlogged in user (129.79.70.161 from indiana.edu) deleted Parfrey's name from the small list of people who were described as too ignorant to understand that Mike Bara's work is garbage.

I'm not going to revert but I'd like to point out that Parfrey really is ignorant, at least in terms of the subject matter of Dark Mission. Parfrey apparently knows next to nothing about planetary astronomy and the history of spaceflight (he has that in common with Mike Bara himself.)

{{citation needed}}

OK, OK. Peruse this comment thread and see if you agree. Ithaca (talk) 00:44, 31 January 2014 (UTC)

The great thing about truth ...

From the article:

*Responding to Neil deGrasse Tyson's dictum "The good thing about science is that it's true whether or not you believe in it", Bara wrote "The great thing about truth is that it eventually becomes self-evident no matter what the scientific materialists believe."

The problem with Bara's quote is that he conflates the activity "science" with "what scientists believe". Theoretically science should always be getting closer to the "truth" (whatever that may mean) although individual scientists may be mistaken along the route.--Bob^{"I think you'll find it's more complicated than that."} 18:09, 28 August 2014 (UTC)

Mike Bara belongs in the Ufology category

Why do you keep reverting it Jakester499 (talk) --Does anyone else think Chris Christie is the lawyer from Stephen King's Thinner 17:04, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

Actually I've only reverted once. Bara has written four and a half books, and in none of them has he advocated that UFOs come from intelligent extraterrestrials. I should think that would be the minimal test for inclusion in that category. But go ahead if you wish -- I won't revert again. Ithaca8 (talk) 19:41, 4 October 2015 (UTC)

He actually is (or was) the in-house sceptic on some UFO 'investigative' series that I've forgotten the name of. --Scherben (talk) 16:13, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

It was Uncovering Aliens—the 4-ep series that uncovered nothing very much. Ithaca8 (talk) 16:33, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

Thanks. It was bleeding awful, on top of the chutzpah of having Mr. Bara as a sceptic. --Scherben (talk) 17:51, 29 January 2018 (UTC)

Pareidolia

If Pareidolia's bullshit, does that mean that every cloud or stain I look at is actually a sheep, dog, train etc? ZOMG!!!111 --Scherben (talk) 16:16, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

What about this (to take one of several examples)? Anna Livia (talk) 16:37, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

I like that, thanks for the link :). I hope someone's feeding all those completely real creatures. --Scherben (talk) 17:38, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

Glad to amuse. Anna Livia (talk) 18:24, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

>>does that mean that every cloud or stain I look at is actually a sheep, dog, train etc?<< Not exactly, but there's a rat on Mars. And an adjustable wrench. And a replica of the Theme Restaurant at LAX, Ithaca8 (talk) 19:37, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

How about when reading words create images in your mind. The word truck is a truck. ikanreed ^{🐐Bleat at me} 19:43, 11 October 2017 (UTC)

In that case, I'm going to read the words 'I am Bill Gates', and demand a huge dividend off Microsoft ;) --Scherben (talk) 16:16, 12 October 2017 (UTC)

Has anyone noticed that the book titles one sees on scanning a bookshelf tend to be far more interesting than the actual titles one picks the words out from? Anna Livia (talk) 09:37, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

Why do you have to settle with clouds when you've in space a blue dragon complete with smoke (Eragon's Sapphira comes to mind), a horse with a rider (seen from the front), and a middle finger.

As for Mike Bara, this may be of interest. Panzerfaust (talk) 12:53, 10 December 2017 (UTC)

Ignoring the obvious falsifying of his 'upside down hypothesis', what would make Bara think that glass would deflect meteors? And how would he know from a photo that was their purpose? (To reiterate, he's bullshitted about the images; I don't think there's glass structures anywhere in the Solar System other than Earth.) --Scherben (talk) 19:09, 11 December 2017 (UTC)

At the end I suppose that he knows that bullshit sells and is producing it for the masses who like it and are more than glad to shell out money, even if it's so absurd as glass skyscrapers that appear only after aggressive image processing and so many other stupidities, not just from Bara. Panzerfaust (talk) 22:43, 12 December 2017 (UTC)

He definitely knows what sells, but does he believe his own bullshit? His 'interesting debating style' suggests he does. Though he could be annoyed with those he feels are derailing his gravy train (as if they could ever do that. See Erich Von Daniken). --Scherben (talk) 18:33, 14 December 2017 (UTC)