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There is so much unwarranted alarmism about this. This is not the end of astronomy, nor is it even super serious. The "unavoidable impact" they're talking about
by modeless 6y ago
There is so much unwarranted alarmism about this. This is not the end of astronomy, nor is it even super serious. The "unavoidable impact" they're talking about is that astronomers will have to care about when and where satellites will appear, rather than not bothering and just throwing away the rare image with a satellite in it. A small percentage of their pixels will be affected by satellite trails and they will need to implement better algorithms to avoid them, remove them, or use different sensor technologies that can reject them better.
Sure, if you're an astronomer this is annoying, and will cost you some effort and money and time. But you'll still be able to do astronomy. Meanwhile, if you're not an astronomer, the satellites will not be visible to the naked eye in their final orbits. The entire surface of the Earth will gain low latency broadband internet access for the first time, and new launch systems will drastically reduce the cost of access to space, enabling more space-based astronomy.
- guerrilla 6y ago> will cost you some effort and money and time. This externality needs to be captured for it to be fair.
- modeless 6y agoSure. Governments regulate space pretty closely and they have the ability to account for that. I'm sure the commercial potential of global broadband internet is high enough that some funding for astronomers wouldn't be a huge obstacle to the constellation operators.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- gpm 6y agoThis is a curious assumption. Why would the small number of astronomers get ownership over the resource of the night sky instead of the much larger population of people who want internet? I'd argue that the positive externalities of the latter far outweigh the negative externalities of the former when deciding how to tax spacex.
- guerrilla 6y ago> Why would the small number of astronomers get ownership over the resource of the night sky instead of the much larger population of people who want internet? They would not. It belongs to the whole of the population, not any part of it. Depriving any part of the population, especially without consent, is what's unfair and requires compensation. > I'd argue that the positive externalities of the latter far outweigh the negative externalities of the former when deciding how to tax spacex. This sounds like a great way to introduce abitraryness into the situation. If it has a value to all these parties then it has a price and if people are going to deprive other people of that then they can pay for those people's loss, and even better, get everyone's consent instead of making assumptions about the greater good and collective good.
- SkyPuncher 6y agoI feel the same way about this discussion. Yes, it has negative effects, but it also promise some very good positive effects.