Did the SpaceX Falcon 9 Launch Just Prove the Flat Earth? Flagstaff Vantage Point

A couple days ago I posted about a question I found the answer to about the recent SpaceX launch in California. You can read it https://steemit.com/conspiracy/@aboutyourbiz/has-spacex-proven--background-story if you like. I’ve been trying to collect relevant information regarding the contents of another video of the launch that I found, so that maybe someone can help answer my new questions.

The video in question was taken by a gentleman outside of Flagstaff AZ on Mount Elden. This is another time lapse video, but the vantage point made me question the view.

The origin of the rocket launch is Lompoc CA. Flagstaff is 501 miles from Lompoc as the crow flies. Mount Elden is 9,301 ft. The rocket is shown to be flying parallel to the ground for at least a couple hundred miles heading south. There is a cloud layer, but you can see at 8 seconds into the video the break in the exhaust trail, just like in all the other videos. I do not know how high the rocket was when the break in the exhaust occurs.

At 1:10 in the video he shows a second camera angle, which still has some exhaust residue which shows the launch origin point, but the vantage point shows a great distance both looking west and the width of north and south. I took a screen shot at 1:10 and put a bar just below the horizon, and there is no evidence of curvature that I can see.

From the data I’ve found, we should see a curvature in his video, but we don’t. In addition, from 1:10 to 1:12 in the video, we can still see the rocket, sans exhaust, continuing to parallel the ground until it’s out of the shot. I’ve compiled screen shots so you can see the movement in stills.

Data I’ve Collected

• Time Lapse of video is 20 min (see first 3 seconds of video for information)
• Slowest speed of rocket 5993 km/h or 3723.878 mph (This is from a previous launch, but should be in the ball park http://www.planetary.org/multimedia/space-images/charts/falcon-9-first-stage.html and http://www.metric-conversions.org/speed/kilometers-per-hour-to-miles-per-hour.htm
• 501 miles from Flagstaff to Lompoc https://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/distanceresult.html?p1=1945&p2=4438
• Mount Elden is 9,301 ft https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Elden
• The Earth curves at approximately 8 inches per per mile squared http://earthcurvature.com/
  https://qph.ec.quoracdn.net/main-qimg-9d3c671f37ee2cf674186e4c493eb7c7-c

The Things That Make Me Go Hmm...

• Based on the minimum rocket speed, with a time lapse of 20 minutes, the rocket flew south parallel to the earth 1,241 miles. Even if it is only 300 miles north and south, we don’t see curvature of the horizon running north and south, which we should.

• Looking from Mount Elden to Lompoc, East to West, Lompoc should be some 31 miles below the curve, yet we can see the break in the exhaust trail.

• The rocket clearly went up and then flew parallel to the earth for several hundred miles. If your goal is to put satellites in orbit, this seems like a waste of energy going sideways hundreds of miles instead of up and makes no sense.

These are the things that don’t make sense to me and make me wonder if they just proved the earth is flat.