7 ms·

Yes, I’m an astronomer and I can tell you this SpaceX statement is pure BS. The astronomy community absolutely thought of this before any of these satellites we

by 9192631770_Hz 7y ago

Yes, I’m an astronomer and I can tell you this SpaceX statement is pure BS. The astronomy community absolutely thought of this before any of these satellites were launched. I’ve personally talked about it at public outreach events (and it was members of the public who brought it up) and topic has definitely come up at professional meetings...but there is just a general feeling of powerlessness, both from the point of how do you fight a company like SpaceX and a charlatan like Musk, and also from the point of many members of the public don’t care. I also know a lot of people directly involved in SSA and all of them are very concerned with how much these new constellations are going to increase the risk of collisions, and they all think it’s completely irresponsible when the SpaceX cultists just dismiss the concerns with, “space is a big place,” or, “they’ll deorbit in 20 years or so.”

sunstone 7y ago
It's very unlikely that SpaceX, who has to be concerned about space debris every time they launch, didn't think about the collision risk while they were designing their satellite system. In fact they petitioned the FCC(?) to lower the constellation's altitude for the very reason that, in the case of a malfunction, the satellite's would orbit would degrade more quickly. A carefully tracked constellation of satellites would be much easier to avoid than the random chunks of shrapnel left behind by other mishaps. EDIT: a few typos
- Chris_Chambers 7y ago
  Your first use of “did” should be “didn’t”. Fix your comment.
- new_realist 7y ago
  I think they lowered the orbit because Starlink latency was/is not competitive.
  - remarkEon 7y ago
    It can’t be both?
  - SamReidHughes 7y ago
    Lowering orbit doesn't substantially reduce latency, building more satellites does.
    - buboard 7y ago
      compared to geostationary sats, starlinks are 1/30 of the distance, and thus 1/30 of the latency
      - ceejayoz 7y ago
        It makes a difference there, sure, but SpaceX lowered orbits from 1,150 to 550km. Half the latency, but only by about as much as traffic between LA to SF incurs.
        deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
        SamReidHughes 7y ago
        I was a bit wrong in my initial estimate. More satellites can't improve latency by much once they get dense enough, and it looks like Starlink has enough such that the altitude would be on the same scale as distance. Still doesn't matter for the typical home user. Like, I get 21 ms ping to servers in my local city.
        nordsieck 7y ago
        > Still doesn't matter for the typical home user. One very important market they're going after is global arbitrageurs.
        sneak 7y ago
        The funny part is that by providing low latency service to them, they are (hopefully) going to be able to fund SpaceX longer to build rockets to get human colonies off-planet. It’s almost like a Gibson or Stephenson novel.
  - jayd16 7y ago
    I was under the impression that Starlink latency is actually very competitive with terrestrial fiber. Why do you say it wasn't or isn't? Everything I find suggest Starlink will have low latency.
    - h5arehe5ra4h 7y ago
      For most usages yes. For gaming though it's right on the edge: theoretical minimum at 350km orbit is 40ms roundtrip, which would work for most games. But many complications, including position of the satellite, latencies within the networking components, packet loss etc, can easily slow this to 100ms+, which is unsuitable for many online games.
      - tigershark 7y ago
        No, the round trip for electromagnetic waves at 350km it’s about 2 ms not 40. The lowest orbit of the satellites though would be 550km and not 350km, but it would still be less than 4ms. From where did you get the 40ms figure that it’s wrong by an order of magnitude?
        chungus_khan 7y ago
        I don't know where they got that figure from, but it is unrealistic to not also expect a decent amount of latency to be introduced by the transmission hardware, particularly under load. I have no idea how much, but this has generally been the case with most systems of this sort.
        jsjohnst 7y ago
        Electromagnetic waves travel at essentially the speed of light. The speed of light is roughly 300km per millisecond. So if they are 550km up, that’s roughly 4ms round trip. Even with horrible inefficiency, it won’t likely increase that by 10x.
allovernow 7y ago
>charlatan like Musk I'm not a fanboy by any means but the guy built two companies and launched a car from his factory into space from a rocket his other business built. He's personally spearheading the early stages of commercial space exploration. I don't know that I'd describe him as a charlatan.
- ForHackernews 7y ago
  Musk did not found Tesla, but would like you to believe that he did: https://www.quora.com/Did-Elon-Musk-found-Tesla-1 https://www.quora.com/Did-Elon-Musk-found-Tesla-1 Maybe 'charlatan' is unfair, but he's certainly more of a sales-and-hype man than a real engineering type. I don't understand why so many technical people are snowed by his razzle dazzle.
  - ceejayoz 7y ago
    While true, the company was founded in July 2003 and Musk joined in February 2004. The first Roadster prototypes were revealed in 2006. Acting like he hitched his flag to an already successful company is disingenuous.
    - jacquesm 7y ago
      And then there was paypal.
      - OnlineGladiator 7y ago
        It's not clear to me how active Elon was with PayPal, I really think it was much more Peter Thiel that made it successful (although I am not claiming expertise). Elon founded x.com which merged with what become PayPal, but as PayPal started to become successful it was Peter Thiel at the helm. That doesn't mean Elon wasn't instrumental to its success, only that I cannot find much evidence that he was instrumental to its success. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PayPal#Early_history https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PayPal#Early_history > In October of that year, Musk made the decision that X.com would terminate its other Internet banking operations and focus on the PayPal money service.[25] In the same month, Elon Musk was replaced by Peter Thiel as CEO of X.com. The X.com company was then renamed PayPal in 2001,[26] and expanded rapidly throughout the year until company executives decided to take PayPal public in 2002.
mlindner 7y ago
> Yes, I’m an astronomer and I can tell you this SpaceX statement is pure BS. The astronomy community absolutely thought of this before any of these satellites were launched. I’ve personally talked about it at public outreach events (and it was members of the public who brought it up) and topic has definitely come up at professional meetings...but there is just a general feeling of powerlessness, both from the point of how do you fight a company like SpaceX and a charlatan like Musk, and also from the point of many members of the public don’t care. Why aren't you talking about any of the other constellations that are being built? They're all planning huge numbers of satellites, many of which are larger or in higher orbits than SpaceX's satellites. You can't single out Elon Musk's companies just because of a personal vendetta if you're actually trying to be fair and attack this from a technical perspective.
- londons_explore 7y ago
  Many of the other constellations look unlikely to be completed.
s1k3b8 7y ago
> charlatan like Musk If Musk was a charlatan, we wouldn't have this problem. Musk would have failed to put spacelink satellites in orbit and we wouldn't have this problem. The reason why we have this problem is precisely because Musk isn't a charlatan. > I also know a lot of people directly involved in SSA and all of them are very concerned with how much these new constellations are going to increase the risk of collisions Just because they are concerned doesn't mean they are against SpaceX or Musk. Every venture is open to concern. > SpaceX cultists Is NASA and the US government SpaceX cultists? You act like Musk just sent this satellites up there without any warning or government approval. He didn't. All you've done is toss ad hominems at Musk, SpaceX and those who support this venture.
- 9192631770_Hz 7y ago
  I call Musk a charlatan because he tries to pass himself off as something he isn't. His physics and engineering knowledge is nowhere near the level he boasts about, and he often states things that an SME would find laughable were they not eaten up without question by so many ill-informed cultists. It's dangerous, and unfortunately it's probably going to result in even more harm to people before he's reigned in. And to clarify, the SSA folks I was referring to are against these types of constellations particularly in the context of the speed and lack of oversight (and no, FCC/ITU spectrum approval has nothing to do with oversight and regulation of the physical objects in orbit) of these ventures.

sunstone 7y ago

It's very unlikely that SpaceX, who has to be concerned about space debris every time they launch, didn't think about the collision risk while they were designing their satellite system. In fact they petitioned the FCC(?) to lower the constellation's altitude for the very reason that, in the case of a malfunction, the satellite's would orbit would degrade more quickly. A carefully tracked constellation of satellites would be much easier to avoid than the random chunks of shrapnel left behind by other mishaps. EDIT: a few typos

Chris_Chambers 7y ago
Your first use of “did” should be “didn’t”. Fix your comment.
new_realist 7y ago
I think they lowered the orbit because Starlink latency was/is not competitive.
- remarkEon 7y ago
  It can’t be both?
- SamReidHughes 7y ago
  Lowering orbit doesn't substantially reduce latency, building more satellites does.
  - buboard 7y ago
    compared to geostationary sats, starlinks are 1/30 of the distance, and thus 1/30 of the latency
    - ceejayoz 7y ago
      It makes a difference there, sure, but SpaceX lowered orbits from 1,150 to 550km. Half the latency, but only by about as much as traffic between LA to SF incurs.
      - deleted 7y ago
        [deleted]
      - SamReidHughes 7y ago
        I was a bit wrong in my initial estimate. More satellites can't improve latency by much once they get dense enough, and it looks like Starlink has enough such that the altitude would be on the same scale as distance. Still doesn't matter for the typical home user. Like, I get 21 ms ping to servers in my local city.
        nordsieck 7y ago
        > Still doesn't matter for the typical home user. One very important market they're going after is global arbitrageurs.
        sneak 7y ago
        The funny part is that by providing low latency service to them, they are (hopefully) going to be able to fund SpaceX longer to build rockets to get human colonies off-planet. It’s almost like a Gibson or Stephenson novel.
- jayd16 7y ago
  I was under the impression that Starlink latency is actually very competitive with terrestrial fiber. Why do you say it wasn't or isn't? Everything I find suggest Starlink will have low latency.
  - h5arehe5ra4h 7y ago
    For most usages yes. For gaming though it's right on the edge: theoretical minimum at 350km orbit is 40ms roundtrip, which would work for most games. But many complications, including position of the satellite, latencies within the networking components, packet loss etc, can easily slow this to 100ms+, which is unsuitable for many online games.
    - tigershark 7y ago
      No, the round trip for electromagnetic waves at 350km it’s about 2 ms not 40. The lowest orbit of the satellites though would be 550km and not 350km, but it would still be less than 4ms. From where did you get the 40ms figure that it’s wrong by an order of magnitude?
      - chungus_khan 7y ago
        I don't know where they got that figure from, but it is unrealistic to not also expect a decent amount of latency to be introduced by the transmission hardware, particularly under load. I have no idea how much, but this has generally been the case with most systems of this sort.
        jsjohnst 7y ago
        Electromagnetic waves travel at essentially the speed of light. The speed of light is roughly 300km per millisecond. So if they are 550km up, that’s roughly 4ms round trip. Even with horrible inefficiency, it won’t likely increase that by 10x.

allovernow 7y ago

>charlatan like Musk I'm not a fanboy by any means but the guy built two companies and launched a car from his factory into space from a rocket his other business built. He's personally spearheading the early stages of commercial space exploration. I don't know that I'd describe him as a charlatan.

ForHackernews 7y ago
Musk did not found Tesla, but would like you to believe that he did: https://www.quora.com/Did-Elon-Musk-found-Tesla-1 https://www.quora.com/Did-Elon-Musk-found-Tesla-1 Maybe 'charlatan' is unfair, but he's certainly more of a sales-and-hype man than a real engineering type. I don't understand why so many technical people are snowed by his razzle dazzle.
- ceejayoz 7y ago
  While true, the company was founded in July 2003 and Musk joined in February 2004. The first Roadster prototypes were revealed in 2006. Acting like he hitched his flag to an already successful company is disingenuous.
  - jacquesm 7y ago
    And then there was paypal.
    - OnlineGladiator 7y ago
      It's not clear to me how active Elon was with PayPal, I really think it was much more Peter Thiel that made it successful (although I am not claiming expertise). Elon founded x.com which merged with what become PayPal, but as PayPal started to become successful it was Peter Thiel at the helm. That doesn't mean Elon wasn't instrumental to its success, only that I cannot find much evidence that he was instrumental to its success. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PayPal#Early_history https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PayPal#Early_history > In October of that year, Musk made the decision that X.com would terminate its other Internet banking operations and focus on the PayPal money service.[25] In the same month, Elon Musk was replaced by Peter Thiel as CEO of X.com. The X.com company was then renamed PayPal in 2001,[26] and expanded rapidly throughout the year until company executives decided to take PayPal public in 2002.

mlindner 7y ago

> Yes, I’m an astronomer and I can tell you this SpaceX statement is pure BS. The astronomy community absolutely thought of this before any of these satellites were launched. I’ve personally talked about it at public outreach events (and it was members of the public who brought it up) and topic has definitely come up at professional meetings...but there is just a general feeling of powerlessness, both from the point of how do you fight a company like SpaceX and a charlatan like Musk, and also from the point of many members of the public don’t care. Why aren't you talking about any of the other constellations that are being built? They're all planning huge numbers of satellites, many of which are larger or in higher orbits than SpaceX's satellites. You can't single out Elon Musk's companies just because of a personal vendetta if you're actually trying to be fair and attack this from a technical perspective.

londons_explore 7y ago
Many of the other constellations look unlikely to be completed.

s1k3b8 7y ago

> charlatan like Musk If Musk was a charlatan, we wouldn't have this problem. Musk would have failed to put spacelink satellites in orbit and we wouldn't have this problem. The reason why we have this problem is precisely because Musk isn't a charlatan. > I also know a lot of people directly involved in SSA and all of them are very concerned with how much these new constellations are going to increase the risk of collisions Just because they are concerned doesn't mean they are against SpaceX or Musk. Every venture is open to concern. > SpaceX cultists Is NASA and the US government SpaceX cultists? You act like Musk just sent this satellites up there without any warning or government approval. He didn't. All you've done is toss ad hominems at Musk, SpaceX and those who support this venture.

9192631770_Hz 7y ago
I call Musk a charlatan because he tries to pass himself off as something he isn't. His physics and engineering knowledge is nowhere near the level he boasts about, and he often states things that an SME would find laughable were they not eaten up without question by so many ill-informed cultists. It's dangerous, and unfortunately it's probably going to result in even more harm to people before he's reigned in. And to clarify, the SSA folks I was referring to are against these types of constellations particularly in the context of the speed and lack of oversight (and no, FCC/ITU spectrum approval has nothing to do with oversight and regulation of the physical objects in orbit) of these ventures.