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> As a researcher, to those who backed Musk and the like on this bullshit vanity project; Fuck you, he's stealing the fucking sky from us Why does the sky only

> As a researcher, to those who backed Musk and the like on this bullshit vanity project; Fuck you, he's stealing the fucking sky from us Why does the sky only belong to researchers and not all of humanity? The number of humans interested in faster internet far exceeds the number of humans interested in earth-based telescopes.

noodlesUK 5y ago
I’m not a researcher, and when I look at that photo, I feel like the sky is being stolen. It’s that it’s for one man’s company, not for all humanity. The lack of internet coverage in the US is a solvable problem driven by idiotic politics, and land based solutions will always be lower latency/faster if built right.
- ironmagma 5y ago
  Playing devil's advocate, if a problem is solvable but politics prevent it from being solved, the problem is not solvable.
  - noodlesUK 5y ago
    You’re totally right to an extent. It means that any solution to that problem is political of course, rather than technical. This is an interesting example where a company’s business model is effectively a technical workaround to a political problem
- _Microft 5y ago
  > not for all humanity Starlink does theoretically solve the problem of internet access for everyone, everywhere. At once.
  - noodlesUK 5y ago
    For all those who can afford it, subject to the whims of a company controlled by one man. The sky is beautiful and free for anyone who can look up towards it.
    - gamegoblin 5y ago
      > subject to the whims of a company controlled by one man There are several other competitors with satellites already in orbit or launches scheduled. So, assuming there is no collusion, competitive pressure should ameliorate a lot of the concerns about concentration of control. Some of the competitors are even partly owned by governments (e.g. OneWeb and the UK govt) and thus look slightly more like a public utility.
    - truth_ 5y ago
      Generating employment and accessible education through internet is more immediate need of humanity than "beautiful sky free for anyone".
    - mlindner 5y ago
      > subject to the whims of a company controlled by one man. If we see said one man actually controlling who has access, I think that's an appropriate time to take issue, and I expect many people would take issue.
  - tzs 5y ago
    No it doesn't. The full constellation of Starlink satellites will not have enough bandwidth for that. It can only provide access to a small fraction of the population, and they need to be in areas where the population density of Starlink users is not top high.
- gamegoblin 5y ago
  > The lack of internet coverage in the US is a solvable problem driven by idiotic politics Starlink/OneWeb/Kuiper solve a much bigger problem than just rural US coverage. > land based solutions will always be lower latency/faster if built right Not necessarily true due to the speed of transmission in fiber vs. speed of light in vacuum (once the Starlink laser links are set up).
  - freemint 5y ago
    If Elon Musk aims sees building vacuum tunnels for trains as an option he could also build large enough vacuum tubes to send signal through. Those will be faster than a satellite.
  - DoingIsLearning 5y ago
    > Starlink/OneWeb/Kuiper solve a much bigger problem than just rural US coverage. Such as? The only use cases it addresses are upper class users who want to go off-grid, and state/military operations (Already being tested by US forces btw). > Not necessarily true due to the speed of transmission in fiber vs. speed of light in vacuum (once the Starlink laser links are set up). Absolutely misleading argument. I can push a trickle of water at the speed of light it would still not allow me to watch netflix in 4k. The issue with satellite internet is channel capacity. Also bandwith wise the satellite has to keep plexing between all user nodes in it's range. You go beyond a few thousands users and your speed starts dropping. that can only be addressed by adding more and more satellites, where do you stop?
    - gamegoblin 5y ago
      > Such as? The only use cases it addresses are upper class users who want to go off-grid There are a lot of close-to-poverty-line indigenous communities in the US and Canada adopting Starlink. e.g.: [1] https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/10/remote-tribe-says-spacex-starlink-catapulted-them-into-21st-century/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/10/remot... [2] https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-starlink-internet-first-canada-customer-indigenous-community-pikangikum-musk-2020-12 https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-starlink-internet-fir... There are already loads of NGOs (e.g. [3]) operating in rural developing nations to install solar power for village community centers. It's a small step to install a shared satellite internet terminal at the same time. The jump in quality of life and opportunities from zero connectivity to a 100MBps shared village link is massive. You hugely expand access to telehealth, weather information, education opportunities, etc. [3] https://www.honnoldfoundation.org https://www.honnoldfoundation.org
- mlindner 5y ago
  > I’m not a researcher, and when I look at that photo, I feel like the sky is being stolen. Unfortunately photos often distort reality, (which is the author's intent here). They purposefully stacked the multiple images in such a way to amplify the satellites clarity, rather than stacking them in a way that would instead have resulted in a clear sky but a slightly elevated noise floor.
cheaprentalyeti 5y ago
"I don't care, I'm still free, you can't take the sky from meeeeeee....." - Sunny Rhodes "Here, hold my beer..." - Elon Musk
- seiferteric 5y ago
  Practically speaking anyone living near a city already had the sky taken away from them with light pollution long ago.
- mlindner 5y ago
  Musk isn't taking the sky from anyone. Please don't use hyperbole that skews the discussion.
notJim 5y ago
I guess one answer is that there's an asymmetry here. There are many terrestrial options for internet service, but there's only one sky to observe. The terrestrial options would need to be funded, but I am skeptical that would be such an unsurmountable task. On the other hand, once all the satellites are up, clean observation of the sky becomes impossible.
- pseudo0 5y ago
  Or we could use a tiny fraction of the economic potential enabled by global, ubiquitous high-speed internet to put a few more telescopes in space? Laying cable across the globe also seems like it would be a whole lot more expensive and environmentally harmful than a few extra satellite launches.
  - freemint 5y ago
    There are some measurements we are not able to do in space (until we have habitats in orbit) due to tuning and experimentation required, size and heating/cooling constraints ... However some new experiments can be done in space, so some branches of astronomy will loose, a few selected will win. The environmental argument is an interesting one and i have no idea on the total lifetime damage of both solutions. The heaviest digging will be required where there are humans living any way. Laying cables and maintenance while probably more expensive also has some benefits such a high paying jobs, distributed all over the world instead of increasing the worlds Gini coefficient further. I would recognize Starlink as a good idea (outweighing the negatives) if it would be public infrastructure but that train has sailed.
- mlindner 5y ago
  > On the other hand, once all the satellites are up, clean observation of the sky becomes impossible. The satellites are actively controlled and can be commanded to deorbit. If a court ordered it (incredibly unlikely), SpaceX could immediately order all the satellites to deorbit. This is a reversible situation if such a need arose.
908B64B197 5y ago
With launches getting cheaper and cheaper, just launch an orbiting telescope. Also, the picture shared seems pretty clickbaity. Not sure who took it but they must be amateurs if they can't mask objects obviously moving on known orbits between frames.
- lumost 5y ago
  A state of the art earth based telescope can be 4 stories high and 30 meters across. Even exceptionally cheap orbital launch will have trouble competing on cost with such telescopes.
  - 908B64B197 5y ago
    How much of that is to correct for atmospheric effects?
belter 5y ago
I guess we will need to find a way for telescope based research to interference with internet connectivity... Lets say, maybe a couple of Astronomy PHds students whose thesis just got ruined, could start a new SETI project. Or more light and gravity studies of Einstein findings :-) I would guess a couple of lasers randomly firing upwards from an Telescope site could not possibly cause issues for low earth satellites, could it ? ;-)
hh3k0 5y ago
Ah, so StarLink is a free-to-use service for all world citizens? I did not know that. Also, the answer to your question is that researchers don't ruin the sky for everyone.

noodlesUK 5y ago

I’m not a researcher, and when I look at that photo, I feel like the sky is being stolen. It’s that it’s for one man’s company, not for all humanity. The lack of internet coverage in the US is a solvable problem driven by idiotic politics, and land based solutions will always be lower latency/faster if built right.

ironmagma 5y ago
Playing devil's advocate, if a problem is solvable but politics prevent it from being solved, the problem is not solvable.
- noodlesUK 5y ago
  You’re totally right to an extent. It means that any solution to that problem is political of course, rather than technical. This is an interesting example where a company’s business model is effectively a technical workaround to a political problem
_Microft 5y ago
> not for all humanity Starlink does theoretically solve the problem of internet access for everyone, everywhere. At once.
- noodlesUK 5y ago
  For all those who can afford it, subject to the whims of a company controlled by one man. The sky is beautiful and free for anyone who can look up towards it.
  - gamegoblin 5y ago
    > subject to the whims of a company controlled by one man There are several other competitors with satellites already in orbit or launches scheduled. So, assuming there is no collusion, competitive pressure should ameliorate a lot of the concerns about concentration of control. Some of the competitors are even partly owned by governments (e.g. OneWeb and the UK govt) and thus look slightly more like a public utility.
  - truth_ 5y ago
    Generating employment and accessible education through internet is more immediate need of humanity than "beautiful sky free for anyone".
  - mlindner 5y ago
    > subject to the whims of a company controlled by one man. If we see said one man actually controlling who has access, I think that's an appropriate time to take issue, and I expect many people would take issue.
- tzs 5y ago
  No it doesn't. The full constellation of Starlink satellites will not have enough bandwidth for that. It can only provide access to a small fraction of the population, and they need to be in areas where the population density of Starlink users is not top high.
gamegoblin 5y ago
> The lack of internet coverage in the US is a solvable problem driven by idiotic politics Starlink/OneWeb/Kuiper solve a much bigger problem than just rural US coverage. > land based solutions will always be lower latency/faster if built right Not necessarily true due to the speed of transmission in fiber vs. speed of light in vacuum (once the Starlink laser links are set up).
- freemint 5y ago
  If Elon Musk aims sees building vacuum tunnels for trains as an option he could also build large enough vacuum tubes to send signal through. Those will be faster than a satellite.
- DoingIsLearning 5y ago
  > Starlink/OneWeb/Kuiper solve a much bigger problem than just rural US coverage. Such as? The only use cases it addresses are upper class users who want to go off-grid, and state/military operations (Already being tested by US forces btw). > Not necessarily true due to the speed of transmission in fiber vs. speed of light in vacuum (once the Starlink laser links are set up). Absolutely misleading argument. I can push a trickle of water at the speed of light it would still not allow me to watch netflix in 4k. The issue with satellite internet is channel capacity. Also bandwith wise the satellite has to keep plexing between all user nodes in it's range. You go beyond a few thousands users and your speed starts dropping. that can only be addressed by adding more and more satellites, where do you stop?
  - gamegoblin 5y ago
    > Such as? The only use cases it addresses are upper class users who want to go off-grid There are a lot of close-to-poverty-line indigenous communities in the US and Canada adopting Starlink. e.g.: [1] https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/10/remote-tribe-says-spacex-starlink-catapulted-them-into-21st-century/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/10/remot... [2] https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-starlink-internet-first-canada-customer-indigenous-community-pikangikum-musk-2020-12 https://www.businessinsider.com/spacex-starlink-internet-fir... There are already loads of NGOs (e.g. [3]) operating in rural developing nations to install solar power for village community centers. It's a small step to install a shared satellite internet terminal at the same time. The jump in quality of life and opportunities from zero connectivity to a 100MBps shared village link is massive. You hugely expand access to telehealth, weather information, education opportunities, etc. [3] https://www.honnoldfoundation.org https://www.honnoldfoundation.org
mlindner 5y ago
> I’m not a researcher, and when I look at that photo, I feel like the sky is being stolen. Unfortunately photos often distort reality, (which is the author's intent here). They purposefully stacked the multiple images in such a way to amplify the satellites clarity, rather than stacking them in a way that would instead have resulted in a clear sky but a slightly elevated noise floor.

cheaprentalyeti 5y ago

"I don't care, I'm still free, you can't take the sky from meeeeeee....." - Sunny Rhodes "Here, hold my beer..." - Elon Musk

seiferteric 5y ago
Practically speaking anyone living near a city already had the sky taken away from them with light pollution long ago.
mlindner 5y ago
Musk isn't taking the sky from anyone. Please don't use hyperbole that skews the discussion.

notJim 5y ago

I guess one answer is that there's an asymmetry here. There are many terrestrial options for internet service, but there's only one sky to observe. The terrestrial options would need to be funded, but I am skeptical that would be such an unsurmountable task. On the other hand, once all the satellites are up, clean observation of the sky becomes impossible.

pseudo0 5y ago
Or we could use a tiny fraction of the economic potential enabled by global, ubiquitous high-speed internet to put a few more telescopes in space? Laying cable across the globe also seems like it would be a whole lot more expensive and environmentally harmful than a few extra satellite launches.
- freemint 5y ago
  There are some measurements we are not able to do in space (until we have habitats in orbit) due to tuning and experimentation required, size and heating/cooling constraints ... However some new experiments can be done in space, so some branches of astronomy will loose, a few selected will win. The environmental argument is an interesting one and i have no idea on the total lifetime damage of both solutions. The heaviest digging will be required where there are humans living any way. Laying cables and maintenance while probably more expensive also has some benefits such a high paying jobs, distributed all over the world instead of increasing the worlds Gini coefficient further. I would recognize Starlink as a good idea (outweighing the negatives) if it would be public infrastructure but that train has sailed.
mlindner 5y ago
> On the other hand, once all the satellites are up, clean observation of the sky becomes impossible. The satellites are actively controlled and can be commanded to deorbit. If a court ordered it (incredibly unlikely), SpaceX could immediately order all the satellites to deorbit. This is a reversible situation if such a need arose.

908B64B197 5y ago

With launches getting cheaper and cheaper, just launch an orbiting telescope. Also, the picture shared seems pretty clickbaity. Not sure who took it but they must be amateurs if they can't mask objects obviously moving on known orbits between frames.

lumost 5y ago
A state of the art earth based telescope can be 4 stories high and 30 meters across. Even exceptionally cheap orbital launch will have trouble competing on cost with such telescopes.
- 908B64B197 5y ago
  How much of that is to correct for atmospheric effects?

belter 5y ago

I guess we will need to find a way for telescope based research to interference with internet connectivity... Lets say, maybe a couple of Astronomy PHds students whose thesis just got ruined, could start a new SETI project. Or more light and gravity studies of Einstein findings :-) I would guess a couple of lasers randomly firing upwards from an Telescope site could not possibly cause issues for low earth satellites, could it ? ;-)

hh3k0 5y ago

Ah, so StarLink is a free-to-use service for all world citizens? I did not know that. Also, the answer to your question is that researchers don't ruin the sky for everyone.