FE Meme
Spaceship Window: Flat Disc Earth
#141: From orbit you would see Earth as a flat disc with a blue rim, the cartoon shows a pancake world floating in space instead of a sphere.
The Meme
Smiling Friends–style cockpit cartoon: two characters react in shock while the window shows a flat Earth disk (continents on a blue-rimmed circle) in starry space; console screen still displays a round globe icon.
Why It Spreads
The flat disk with a blue rim drawn large in the cockpit window is unmistakable, and the console still showing a round globe icon sells the "which model is real?" joke in one panel. Animation fans and FE debaters both share it because the visual contrast feels like catching a contradiction between UI and viewport.
What It Gets Wrong
The Smiling Friends cockpit cartoon shows shocked characters staring at a flat Earth disk with a blue rim in the window while the console still displays a round globe icon, and the joke is the mismatch with observation. No crew ever photographed Earth as a pancake with a vertical ice wall from orbit; from altitude near 400 km, d_h ≈ √(2Rh) with R ≈ 6371 km predicts horizon dip and a complete curved limb in real ISS and weather-satellite photography. Full-disk views show a round limb, not a coin with an edge holding oceans. TestTheGlobe's No Curvature Is Visible and TestTheGlobe's Curvature Calculator walk through the observations and predictions this image skips.
The Debunk
From orbital altitude near 400 km, d_h ≈ √(2Rh) predicts horizon dip and a complete curved limb in real photography; that fits ISS and weather-satellite views. A Smiling Friends cartoon showing a flat disc with a blue rim in the cockpit window is inconsistent with telemetry, while the console globe icon matches the observation record. Use TestTheGlobe's Curvature Calculator to compare the meme's claim with a measurable prediction.
- TestTheGlobe's ISS Footage Shows Real Zero-G page discusses orbital footage where horizon dip and full-disk views match a sphere, not a rimmed disc.
- TestTheGlobe's Curvature Calculator quantifies the dip visible from typical orbital altitudes near 400 km, d_h ≈ √(2Rh) with R ≈ 6371 km predicts a horizon hundreds of kilometres away, consistent with a round limb.
- TestTheGlobe's No Curvature Is Visible: full-disk views from weather satellites show a complete curved limb, not a coin with a rim holding oceans.
- TestTheGlobe's Satellites Are Not Real: the console globe icon versus window disk is the joke; the observation record matches the sphere, not the cartoon pancake.