3 ms·

What right do astronomers have to clear skies for their specific purpose? It is commonly argued that "everyone has a right to clean, affordable drinking water"

What right do astronomers have to clear skies for their specific purpose? It is commonly argued that "everyone has a right to clean, affordable drinking water", and yet New York City and China and India and etc continuously pollute waterways because business has been prioritized instead, for better or for worse.

dandelany 7y ago
It does not have to be an innate human right to be something we find valuable & worth protecting. The argument is that astronomy benefits society & that's worth fighting for - no need to make it more complicated than that. And your second paragraph is simple whataboutism - the fact that pollution occurs despite us wishing it doesn't has no bearing on the question of radio astronomy vs. internet satellites.
- quaquaqua1 7y ago
  It may have no bearing, but it is a useful analogy to understand the problem. You either make life hard for one group of people or another. One thing I don't personally like to hear is when someone calls something a right but society's workarounds are already plenty fine. We have workarounds for polluted water (the citizen must pay), and we have workarounds for terrestrial astronomy (various space telescopes).
bigiain 7y ago
What right does SpaceX have to externalise the costs to astronomers of their launches?
- quaquaqua1 7y ago
  None, but I infinitely would prefer their satellite internet service over the benefits of terrestrial astronomy. Hubble and Kepler and James Webb are plenty fine for me.
  - privong 7y ago
    > Hubble and Kepler and James Webb are plenty fine for me. Those facilities have resulted in lots of discoveries. But Kepler wouldn't have been such a success without lots of follow-up observations from ground-based telescopes (e.g., measuring spectroscopic radial velocities to confirm exoplanets). It's likely that many HST (and eventually JWST) studies rely or will rely on data taken with ground based facilities in order to actually interpret the data. Pardon the pun, but space based telescopes don't exist in a (scientific) vacuum. They have unique and impressive capabilities, but they don't stand alone.
  - bigiain 7y ago
    Sure. But we all know what the astronomers would answer too. Fibre and coax broadband are plenty fine for them... I don't know how to measure some objective ranking of the benefits of terrestrial astronomy vs satellite internet services - I doubt there's any way to quantify those two things sensibly. I _do_ note though, that while the existence of telescopes on the ground doesn't threaten the existence of satellite internet, satellite internet _does_ threaten the existence of ground based astronomy. Doesn't seem "right" that SpaceX(or Amazon or other constellations) can just say "Sucks to be you, we're going to fuck up your entire field of study because we think we can make a buck here". Pretty sure we shouldn't just let Elon and Jeff decide here, without letting orgs like the IAU at least have their say, and put forward an argument against it...
    - perilunar 7y ago
      > "Sucks to be you, we're going to fuck up your entire field of study because we think we can make a buck here". More like: "Sorry to interrupt your observations, but we are trying to kickstart a space-based civilisation here". I'm sympathetic to astronomers (I have a telescope myself), but I'd much rather go to space than just observe it.

dandelany 7y ago

It does not have to be an innate human right to be something we find valuable & worth protecting. The argument is that astronomy benefits society & that's worth fighting for - no need to make it more complicated than that. And your second paragraph is simple whataboutism - the fact that pollution occurs despite us wishing it doesn't has no bearing on the question of radio astronomy vs. internet satellites.

quaquaqua1 7y ago
It may have no bearing, but it is a useful analogy to understand the problem. You either make life hard for one group of people or another. One thing I don't personally like to hear is when someone calls something a right but society's workarounds are already plenty fine. We have workarounds for polluted water (the citizen must pay), and we have workarounds for terrestrial astronomy (various space telescopes).

bigiain 7y ago

What right does SpaceX have to externalise the costs to astronomers of their launches?

quaquaqua1 7y ago
None, but I infinitely would prefer their satellite internet service over the benefits of terrestrial astronomy. Hubble and Kepler and James Webb are plenty fine for me.
- privong 7y ago
  > Hubble and Kepler and James Webb are plenty fine for me. Those facilities have resulted in lots of discoveries. But Kepler wouldn't have been such a success without lots of follow-up observations from ground-based telescopes (e.g., measuring spectroscopic radial velocities to confirm exoplanets). It's likely that many HST (and eventually JWST) studies rely or will rely on data taken with ground based facilities in order to actually interpret the data. Pardon the pun, but space based telescopes don't exist in a (scientific) vacuum. They have unique and impressive capabilities, but they don't stand alone.
- bigiain 7y ago
  Sure. But we all know what the astronomers would answer too. Fibre and coax broadband are plenty fine for them... I don't know how to measure some objective ranking of the benefits of terrestrial astronomy vs satellite internet services - I doubt there's any way to quantify those two things sensibly. I _do_ note though, that while the existence of telescopes on the ground doesn't threaten the existence of satellite internet, satellite internet _does_ threaten the existence of ground based astronomy. Doesn't seem "right" that SpaceX(or Amazon or other constellations) can just say "Sucks to be you, we're going to fuck up your entire field of study because we think we can make a buck here". Pretty sure we shouldn't just let Elon and Jeff decide here, without letting orgs like the IAU at least have their say, and put forward an argument against it...
  - perilunar 7y ago
    > "Sucks to be you, we're going to fuck up your entire field of study because we think we can make a buck here". More like: "Sorry to interrupt your observations, but we are trying to kickstart a space-based civilisation here". I'm sympathetic to astronomers (I have a telescope myself), but I'd much rather go to space than just observe it.