Rene-NASA-Mooned-America

Space Navigation / Chap. 7 p. 62
All the measurement of the arc angle between two stars could do was align the capsule.
That was done by azimuth and elevation by comparison to the ship's IMU (Internal Measuring
Unit). The stars are unchanging to instruments as gross as the finest theodolites in the
world; Collins accomplished nothing more than allowing them to know the ship's heading to
the accuracy with which the shot was made.
The stored angles they speak of are the arc angles of separation between any two of the
navigation stars. The "five balls" was part of the razzle-dazzle in that they only told whether
the shots were accurate or not. It was an obfuscation, and this man — who was specially
trained by MIT in space navigation — never figured it out.
Imagine that your ship is in a very high orbit around the Earth. Also imagine that you
have a gunsight right down the center of the ship. Now you point the whole ship at one
particular star and then take great pains to damp out all the ship's motions so you're still
"aimed" at that star. After one orbit, as you came out from behind the Earth, you look for
that star. Would you be shocked to see that the star was still in the gun sight In fact, would
you be surprised to see it stay there, day after day, no matter the time period Six months
later the Earth will have carried you halfway around the solar system, but your ship would
still be pointing at that star. In fact, that same star should be fixed in your gunsight for years.
We are familiar with the astronauts speaking of sequential sunrises and sunsets and we
can picture this happening as we look out a window. However, even if the ship were not in
an axial rotation of 18° per minute, this still couldn't happen. Since the ship's orientation
cannot change during the orbit, even if the cockpit was loaded with windows, there would
come a time when the Earth was at the rear of the ship. Only a spaceship in powered flight
could follow its nose around a planet. If it were in orbit it could not do this without fracturing
Newton's First Law of Motion. The law says that a body in motion tends to stay in
motion.
Each particle of that space ship is a body of mass, and gravity (whatever it is) treats each
without preference. For the nose to be more attracted than the tail would violate that law.
But, while none of the astronauts seem to say they look out the same window, you are led to
believe this is what they are describing. Only in science fiction films can a Star Trek-type
ship orbit a planet nose first.
Yet on the Gemini 12 mission that's precisely what was claimed. In this case the capsule
wasn't following its nose; it had its nose pointed down at Earth. In fact, they also had the
Agena target ship doing the same thing. While they were docked to the Agena, Buzz Aldrin
and Jim Lovell gave the Agena commands to assume a vertical position. They then
undocked, backed away, and made taut the tether they had fastened to the Agena. The next 2
hours were spent steadying the capsule so that it would remain in the same position relative
to Earth.
After two more orbits they let go of the Agena, ". . . and there we were — two dead
vehicles captured by gravity in a vertical position going around the Earth." 6 How can this be
Yet even in drawings that show orbiting capsules in The Illustrated Encyclopedia of
NASA MOONED AMERICA! / Rene