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I would agree, but I've seen the mess that e-scooter organisations have made of this. The city is littered with e-scooters whose name changes every few months.

I would agree, but I've seen the mess that e-scooter organisations have made of this. The city is littered with e-scooters whose name changes every few months. If the business plan doesn't work out, who cleans up the satellites?

Robotbeat 6y ago
The satellites have to have ability to do a commanded deorbit. Additionally, at the altitudes Starlink operates at, if there’s a problem with the commanded deorbit, the satellites will naturally deorbit in a reasonable time. EDIT:OneWeb operates at higher altitudes where if there's a failure, the satellite will stay there for hundreds of years, but to try to mitigate that a bit, they added a grappling fixture/fiducial to try to make it easier for a robotic deorbiting craft to capture it.
- marcus_holmes 6y ago
  I didn't know that about Starlink. That's cool :) The Oneweb stuff not so much, but at least they're thinking about it.
kanox 6y ago
> The city is littered with e-scooters whose name changes every few months. You claim to be against monopolies but are unwilling to tolerate even the slight inconvenience of seeing scooters parked around? I personally love them for their amazing convenience and they're also incredibly compact relative to cars or even bikes. > If the business plan doesn't work out, who cleans up the satellites? Cleaning up is essentially free as long as the satellites are still operational: just command them to deorbit. Orbits are low enough that the fuel required to deorbit is comparable to a few months of station-keeping.
- marcus_holmes 6y ago
  I'm not against the scooters being parked around. I'm against the flood of them, and them being abandoned in the middle of footpaths, cyclepaths, etc. They were a great novelty for a while. But I got over them. So if a satellite stops responding to commands, they're going to go get it? To make sure it doesn't hit anything else and cause more problems?

Robotbeat 6y ago

The satellites have to have ability to do a commanded deorbit. Additionally, at the altitudes Starlink operates at, if there’s a problem with the commanded deorbit, the satellites will naturally deorbit in a reasonable time. EDIT:OneWeb operates at higher altitudes where if there's a failure, the satellite will stay there for hundreds of years, but to try to mitigate that a bit, they added a grappling fixture/fiducial to try to make it easier for a robotic deorbiting craft to capture it.

marcus_holmes 6y ago
I didn't know that about Starlink. That's cool :) The Oneweb stuff not so much, but at least they're thinking about it.

kanox 6y ago

> The city is littered with e-scooters whose name changes every few months. You claim to be against monopolies but are unwilling to tolerate even the slight inconvenience of seeing scooters parked around? I personally love them for their amazing convenience and they're also incredibly compact relative to cars or even bikes. > If the business plan doesn't work out, who cleans up the satellites? Cleaning up is essentially free as long as the satellites are still operational: just command them to deorbit. Orbits are low enough that the fuel required to deorbit is comparable to a few months of station-keeping.

marcus_holmes 6y ago
I'm not against the scooters being parked around. I'm against the flood of them, and them being abandoned in the middle of footpaths, cyclepaths, etc. They were a great novelty for a while. But I got over them. So if a satellite stops responding to commands, they're going to go get it? To make sure it doesn't hit anything else and cause more problems?