<p>OK, I just had time to read the posts added (to the OM thread) since my trip to FL and I can now see that debating math or physics is probably useless. The OP want's to believe (if I've understood him correctly) that Kepler's laws for plantery motion are correct but doesn't want to understand that these can be derived from Newton's laws re:gravitation. Gravity obeys the inverse square law (as observed by Ismaël Bullialdus ) but isn't dependant on an object's mass. This latter point is especially wonderous IMO because it can be demonstrated by anybody (and has been) in everyday life. While it's probably fruitless to do so, I'll try to explain. Drop a big rock and a small rock, ideally in no air, and time their falls. Normally we see them fall at the same rate. Even if you don't believe Newton re: gravity, you have to believe in F=MA (which can also be demonstrated in everyday life by anyone). If the big rock has more M but it's A is the same as the small rock, it follows that the force (F) we call gravity is larger on the big rock. In fact it can be shown to be exactly proportional to the mass of the rock. So now we have gravity being dependant on the mass of the object and inversely propotional to the distance. All that's missing to make this law (which the OP apparently believes in) into Newton's law, is that gravity be dependant on the mass of the planet attracting the "rocks". The mind boggles at this seemingly impossible task ..... <img src="http://sitelife.space.com/ver1.0/content/scripts/tinymce/plugins/emotions/images/smiley-wink.gif" border="0" alt="Wink" title="Wink" /></p><p>We're told that the Moon has air (due to it's increased gravity), lakes and rivers and forests and meadows and mountains with snow caps and a secret base for the FreeMasons (since 1962) that nobody (outside of NASA and it's minions) has seen. Why the Russians, who have orbitted the Moon and put landers there, didn't jump up and let the cat out of the bag during the height of the Cold War and Space Race is beyond me. One wonders how the Chinese will be bought off to keep the secret ? Or what physics they use to place spacecraft in orbit, here or around the Moon ? The mind boggles that NASA has been masterminding this whole deception but does an 'oopsie' when they broadcast over a public channel the secret info that Apollo 8 has crossed into the (larger) lunar gravity well (too soon). Hope they fired that guy ! I mean hundreds of years of hard work convincing the masses, not to mention all the scientists, that Newton was right and his physics worked and all those faked experimental results all undone by the words of 1 man. Then again he may have been given the wrong script to read ... maybe it's the script writers fault. But I guess some independant (of NASA) organization was bound to look at the Moon (some day soon perhaps) with a, hmmm what do you call those new fangled thingees ... oh yeah ... a telescope and see the haze due to the atmosphere or the snow or the green meadows or ..... and then the secret would come out. </p><p> </p> <div class="Discussion_UserSignature"> <p>-----------------------------------------------------</p><p><font color="#ff0000">Ask not what your Forum Software can do do on you,</font></p><p><font color="#ff0000">Ask it to, please for the love of all that's Holy, <strong>STOP</strong> !</font></p> </div>