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Will those american billionaires pay say for more European satellites to compensate? What if this were Chinese satellites would you have the same opinion? It w

Will those american billionaires pay say for more European satellites to compensate? What if this were Chinese satellites would you have the same opinion? It would be great if this billionaires would also launch scientific satellites payed from their pocket to compensate, then I would change my mind.

gambiting 6y ago
Exactly, if China launched thousands of satellites ruining everyone's astronomy efforts I'm sure there would be an uproar. But US doing it? Fine, business as usual.
- tssva 6y ago
  The US isn't doing it. Companies are doing it. As stated in the article the company which is currently planning to place satellites at a height likely to have the greatest impact is OneWeb which is a UK company. It is soon to be controlled by the UK government and an Indian conglomerate. The satellites it launches are built by a joint venture which includes Airbus.
  - simion314 6y ago
    Have you read the paranoia about TikTok? I can see it "Trump: China puts 10000 eyes on the sky, they pretend they want to give Internet to the poor but they have cameras and spy on the traffic, and some reliable sources told me they can release viruses from this satellites in a targets back yard, this needs to stop , I will build a space wall and China will pay for it...
  - gambiting 6y ago
    >>The US isn't doing it. Companies are doing it. Well, that isn't really a useful distinction in any sense of the word. The American companies are doing it, because they are allowed to do so by their country. Most countries which have any kind of space capability have their own space agencies which say what is or isn't ok to launch. If the American space agencies approve things like Starlink, then the pollution of the Earth's view into space isn't purely on Elon Musk.
    - ideals 6y ago
      Due to ITAR regulations SpaceX and Amazon couldn't do it anywhere else either.
  - mikro2nd 6y ago
    The USA is doing it: The permitting authority is a US government agency taking unilateral decisions that affect the entire globe.
  - gorgoiler 6y ago
    ”The US isn’t doing it” Point of order: intercontinental missiles, rockets, and radio telecommunications are highly regulated industries. The US regulators have approved (and not stopped) Starlink on both fronts. I do not know if there’s any international / UN body that performs the same roles?
dr_dshiv 6y ago
I'm sure astronomers would pay for access to a global distributed space-based telescope. So, if there is demand... We are about to have a huge supply.
- gambiting 6y ago
  I often wonder how come we(as in, humanity) ever only launched a single Hubble telescope. Surely, once you built one, you should be able to build more. Or other countries should be able to take the designs and launch their own versions. Hubble was(and I imagine still is) occupied for weeks at the time taking pictures of certain areas of the sky. Why don't we have 50 Hubbles up in the orbit, doing different things simultaneously? Is it simply because there's no money to do so? I also do remember the story how NASA got a couple decommissioned telescopes from some intelligence agency, which turned out to be an order of magnitude better than Hubble is, and the agency was getting rid of them because they were already outdated. I do remember reading that if those were put into astronomy use they would be a lot better than anything we have currently, but of course those are being used for taking pictures of military sites and tanks, rather than stars.
  - welterde 6y ago
    The two donated telescopes were the same diameter as the one Hubble had, but were designed to cover a larger field of view (since the small FoV of Hubble wouldn't have been very useful for reconnaissance). But they came without any instruments, so one would have to develop (or adapt the ones from Hubble) to be able to actually use it (and that's were most of the cost is). And the main limitation is quite simply money.. and since a lot of the things that were only possible with HST in the past are possible from the ground now people started focusing on building space observatories for the parts of the optical spectrum that simply cannot be done from the ground (x-ray, far-infrared, gamma-ray).
  - samatman 6y ago
    If you want an answer to this question, the search string is "James Webb Space Telescope". Be warned: it isn't a pretty picture.
  - 6y ago
BurningFrog 6y ago
SpaceX is lowering satellite launch cost by 90% for anyone, Chinese or otherwise. This should start a golden age of space astronomy, even if Elon doesn't give away some telescope launches as PR.
- simion314 6y ago
  The launch costs is just a small part of the total costs. You destroy my house and I should be happy you offer me a discount when I buy new blueprints from you.
  - iso1210 6y ago
    More like "you build something ugly opposite my house"
    - simion314 6y ago
      Disagree, if I make a factory in China that generates some ugly clouds so you can't see your beautiful sky anymore, then if you complain I give you a discount on my airlines so you can fly above the clouds and see the sky for the first time. It could happen if we let companies pollute for free.
      - iso1210 6y ago
        I have a view over the ocean. Along comes Shell and builds an oil rig, thus spoiling my view. I have a view over the ocean, 50 miles up the coast in another country a marina opens, and dozens of sailing ships start arriving over the hour. I have a view, and an airport opens down the road, I'm now under a flight path, not only is my view obscured, I'm getting noise too.
        simion314 6y ago
        There is a thing called pollution and light pollution is a thing, So you have a home and someone makes noise so you can't sleep, you have a home and your neighbor has pig shit in his backyard and the smell enters in your yard. Also I amargueing from a public(international) point of view. As an individual with terrible eyes sight I already can't see the stars anymore.
valuearb 6y ago
Elon has already cut the cost of putting scientific payloads in space by nearly 80%, what else do you want him to do?
- simion314 6y ago
  Don't shit on others plate and then offer a discount on cleaning products.
ColanR 6y ago
> It would be great if this billionaires would also launch scientific satellites payed from their pocket to compensate, then I would change my mind. They don't owe you anything.
- simion314 6y ago
  We need a sky pollution tax. They owe the public not me personally.

gambiting 6y ago

Exactly, if China launched thousands of satellites ruining everyone's astronomy efforts I'm sure there would be an uproar. But US doing it? Fine, business as usual.

tssva 6y ago
The US isn't doing it. Companies are doing it. As stated in the article the company which is currently planning to place satellites at a height likely to have the greatest impact is OneWeb which is a UK company. It is soon to be controlled by the UK government and an Indian conglomerate. The satellites it launches are built by a joint venture which includes Airbus.
- simion314 6y ago
  Have you read the paranoia about TikTok? I can see it "Trump: China puts 10000 eyes on the sky, they pretend they want to give Internet to the poor but they have cameras and spy on the traffic, and some reliable sources told me they can release viruses from this satellites in a targets back yard, this needs to stop , I will build a space wall and China will pay for it...
- gambiting 6y ago
  >>The US isn't doing it. Companies are doing it. Well, that isn't really a useful distinction in any sense of the word. The American companies are doing it, because they are allowed to do so by their country. Most countries which have any kind of space capability have their own space agencies which say what is or isn't ok to launch. If the American space agencies approve things like Starlink, then the pollution of the Earth's view into space isn't purely on Elon Musk.
  - ideals 6y ago
    Due to ITAR regulations SpaceX and Amazon couldn't do it anywhere else either.
- mikro2nd 6y ago
  The USA is doing it: The permitting authority is a US government agency taking unilateral decisions that affect the entire globe.
- gorgoiler 6y ago
  ”The US isn’t doing it” Point of order: intercontinental missiles, rockets, and radio telecommunications are highly regulated industries. The US regulators have approved (and not stopped) Starlink on both fronts. I do not know if there’s any international / UN body that performs the same roles?

dr_dshiv 6y ago

I'm sure astronomers would pay for access to a global distributed space-based telescope. So, if there is demand... We are about to have a huge supply.

gambiting 6y ago
I often wonder how come we(as in, humanity) ever only launched a single Hubble telescope. Surely, once you built one, you should be able to build more. Or other countries should be able to take the designs and launch their own versions. Hubble was(and I imagine still is) occupied for weeks at the time taking pictures of certain areas of the sky. Why don't we have 50 Hubbles up in the orbit, doing different things simultaneously? Is it simply because there's no money to do so? I also do remember the story how NASA got a couple decommissioned telescopes from some intelligence agency, which turned out to be an order of magnitude better than Hubble is, and the agency was getting rid of them because they were already outdated. I do remember reading that if those were put into astronomy use they would be a lot better than anything we have currently, but of course those are being used for taking pictures of military sites and tanks, rather than stars.
- welterde 6y ago
  The two donated telescopes were the same diameter as the one Hubble had, but were designed to cover a larger field of view (since the small FoV of Hubble wouldn't have been very useful for reconnaissance). But they came without any instruments, so one would have to develop (or adapt the ones from Hubble) to be able to actually use it (and that's were most of the cost is). And the main limitation is quite simply money.. and since a lot of the things that were only possible with HST in the past are possible from the ground now people started focusing on building space observatories for the parts of the optical spectrum that simply cannot be done from the ground (x-ray, far-infrared, gamma-ray).
- samatman 6y ago
  If you want an answer to this question, the search string is "James Webb Space Telescope". Be warned: it isn't a pretty picture.
- 6y ago

BurningFrog 6y ago

SpaceX is lowering satellite launch cost by 90% for anyone, Chinese or otherwise. This should start a golden age of space astronomy, even if Elon doesn't give away some telescope launches as PR.

simion314 6y ago
The launch costs is just a small part of the total costs. You destroy my house and I should be happy you offer me a discount when I buy new blueprints from you.
- iso1210 6y ago
  More like "you build something ugly opposite my house"
  - simion314 6y ago
    Disagree, if I make a factory in China that generates some ugly clouds so you can't see your beautiful sky anymore, then if you complain I give you a discount on my airlines so you can fly above the clouds and see the sky for the first time. It could happen if we let companies pollute for free.
    - iso1210 6y ago
      I have a view over the ocean. Along comes Shell and builds an oil rig, thus spoiling my view. I have a view over the ocean, 50 miles up the coast in another country a marina opens, and dozens of sailing ships start arriving over the hour. I have a view, and an airport opens down the road, I'm now under a flight path, not only is my view obscured, I'm getting noise too.
      - simion314 6y ago
        There is a thing called pollution and light pollution is a thing, So you have a home and someone makes noise so you can't sleep, you have a home and your neighbor has pig shit in his backyard and the smell enters in your yard. Also I amargueing from a public(international) point of view. As an individual with terrible eyes sight I already can't see the stars anymore.

valuearb 6y ago

Elon has already cut the cost of putting scientific payloads in space by nearly 80%, what else do you want him to do?

simion314 6y ago
Don't shit on others plate and then offer a discount on cleaning products.

ColanR 6y ago

> It would be great if this billionaires would also launch scientific satellites payed from their pocket to compensate, then I would change my mind. They don't owe you anything.

simion314 6y ago
We need a sky pollution tax. They owe the public not me personally.