So, for the flat earth proponents, why couldn't satellites work even in a flat earth model?
from NASA's website:
So what if these satellites were moving around in circles (like the sun and moon do on a flat earth model). According to this, it's "moving SIDEWAYS" that keeps the object from being pulled down by gravity. That can happen even if the object is moving around in circles above a flat earth.
So, IMO, based on this, it would seem that the rejection of the existence/possibility of satellites would not be essential to flat earth theory.
Sideways movement is enough to keep an object in the air on a round earth because the earth "falls away" from the satellite at the same rate that gravity* pulls it down (if you are at the right speed, something like
this). On a flat earth, you would actually need upwards propulsion as well otherwise you would fall down.
* or the "downy-pully-effect-that-causes-thing-to-fall" for you "gravity doesn't exist" pedants. I'm going to call it gravity, because that's easier to type than "downy-pully-effect-that-causes-thing-to-fall"
Or, alternatively, briefly describe the math.
There's a few places it comes up, but take, for example, the map drawn on the right side of
this image. You have to project the round earth onto a flat map to make that map. The extreme example is that there's a line of code that explicitly handles what you do when you are sitting on top of the south pole and want to place an object sitting on the north pole. If you do the simplest flat projection, the north and south poles are in the same place, so you need to do some math to avoid that problem.