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Without getting too spaced-out with the the Bezos-Musk dynamics, I personally hate the idea of having private companies getting on the SpaceX bandwagon and clog
by ROARosen 5y ago
Without getting too spaced-out with the the Bezos-Musk dynamics, I personally hate the idea of having private companies getting on the SpaceX bandwagon and clogging up outer space with thousands of satellites.
- hnaccy 5y agoWhy? My impression was that the low orbits used by Starlink and similar are the best place for this since it will all naturally deorbit on short timescales. It's just space who cares if we clog it up some with more useful things.
- verdverm 5y ago"clog" is relative here and space (including LEO) is huge
- toxik 5y agoWe once said the ocean is huge too.
- verdverm 5y agospace >>>> air >> ocean > land It is worth considering the ocean is ~2d while air and space are 3d.
- pdq 5y agoThe ocean is most certainly 3D. The surface is 2D.
- verdverm 5y ago~2d was intended to imply effectively 2d for human activities, even airspace is probably closer to a layered 2d cake than true 3d like deeper space. LEO may be closer to an extension of airspace due to orbits and gravity. Still, due to the exponential growth with respect to the radius, there is significant room in LEO compared to anything terrestrial.
- dylan604 5y agoHow does this differeniate space and the ocean in your mind? Humans cannot survive in either without some sort of vessel to provide a suitable environment.
- verdverm 5y agoMy GGGP point was about "clogging" space with satellites, not about habitation. Space is so large that 100K's of satellites is still not clogged. I believe the SpaceX and AWS constellations are planned to get us pretty close to 100k iirc
- aidenn0 5y agoQuadratic growth, not exponential growth.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- verdverm 5y agoI think it's cubic because they sum, polynomial either way, without considering other factors like potential for increased density the further out
- aidenn0 5y agoRight; I meant the number of satellites supportable at any given altitude, not the number of satellites supportable up to a given altitude.
- colordrops 5y agoAnd there's nothing in space that supports life or the ecosystem.
- verdverm 5y agoDepends, could our increased use of satellite based sensing be used to support and improve the terrestrial situation? Is the tradeoff worth it? It is certain that your life today would not be the same without GPS, so in a sense it does support it.
- colordrops 5y agoI mean there's nothing in space that we will damage (unlike the ocean) by using it. I'm all for utilizing space.
- Denvercoder9 5y agoIs there anyone claiming the ocean is full?
- colordrops 5y agoWhat do you mean?
- switz 5y agoNot OP, but I can think of two reasons – too many LEO satellites can actually hinder views of the night sky[0] and additionally, the risk of kessler syndrome[1]. I'm in no way equipped to give a scientific risk assessment of either, so I'll defer to others to share if they feel it's major concern. But whether these are present issues or not, they're worth considering and thinking about as we move forward with more LEO deployments. The latter issue especially, given that once it occurs, it'll be extremely difficult (nigh impossible?) to rectify in short order. [0] https://astrobites.org/2020/09/25/leosats/ https://astrobites.org/2020/09/25/leosats/ [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome
- logicx24 5y agoAmazing, we now have sky NIMBYs complaining about satellites hindering views.
- dylan604 5y agojust because you live in a place where you can't even see the night sky doesn't mean other people should be robbed of their view.
- Lapsed 5y agoNo one lives in a place where they can see starlink satellites with their naked eye once they are in operational orbit.
- BenjiWiebe 5y agoI'd be in favor of requiring all city lights to be turned off after 7pm so I could see the night sky better in my rural location. (/sorta s) A small city 40 miles away hurts the view far more then the Starlink satellites do.
- mgraczyk 5y agoThe night view is a potential issue, but Kessler syndrome is not. These satellites will decay on extremely short timescales. Until many of them start blowing up and launching debris in higher orbit, we don't need to worry too much about this.
- olivierduval 5y agoBecause you think that being able to read twitter between two ads is "more useful" than watching a pure night sky ???? Maybe you should think about what is really "useful" for you... and what other people find "useful"
- Lapsed 5y agoYou can't see starlink satellites with the naked eye once they are in their operational orbit. I'm sure many people find it useful to be able to attend school: https://www.pcmag.com/news/native-american-tribe-gets-early-access-to-spacexs-starlink-and-says-its https://www.pcmag.com/news/native-american-tribe-gets-early-...
- olivierduval 5y agoSo what is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgysWWwESfU&t=2s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgysWWwESfU&t=2s ? And it's only with 700 satellites around the world right now...
- Lapsed 5y agoThis is shortly after launch while the satellites are still tumbling. Within a few days they align themselves so that their sunshields reduce their brightness and over the next few months they will raise them selves to their operational orbit.
- ppqqrr 5y agoI think people who have night sky views pure enough for satellites to become a nuisance is probably in the global minority. One might even call it a privileged pov, given that most rural inhabitants of this planet struggle for basic network connectivity needed for their livelihood and the education of their children. I respect your sentiment, though - ultimately, the question is not whether we should do it; it’s who’s gonna stop us.
- olivierduval 5y ago
- m0zg 5y agoThat must have been how people felt when railroads and highways were built for the first time.
- jjoonathan 5y agoI personally hate the idea of holding back rural connectivity, mapping, and the general advancement of space-based science and industry in order to preserve the sacrosanct emptiness of certain orbits. Why should your desire for empty orbits outweigh other peoples' desire to put those orbits to productive use?
- joshuamorton 5y agoFor the same reason that we generally believe that my right to clean drinking water outweighs your right to dump toxic waste in a river, even if it is useful to you. Some doors are very difficult to un-open, and caution is warranted when making sweeping changes to space that may do any number of negative things, including make future spaceflights more difficult, make ground-based space research impossible (increasing the price of future space research and making satellites the only way to do get good data), etc.
- CamperBob2 5y agoThis door is trivial to un-open. If we decide the Starlink constellation is a net negative for humanity, we just need to refrain from launching any more of them. The existing ones will deorbit themselves within a few years at most.
- idiotsecant 5y agoDemanding clean orbits at deployments with built-in short term decay trajectories is a funny hill to die on though.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- bperson 5y agoHow many years until a solo hobbyist launches a rocket that crosses the Karman line? I bet as soon as three years and not longer than five years. Ground-based research isn't your only tool in the near future.
- smallerfish 5y agoIf they're on LEO, what's the big deal? Starlink's satellites have a lifetime of around 10 years before they get pulled back into the atmosphere by gravity.
- zardo 5y agoI think that's the intended service life, they'll fall down much faster if they don't actively raise orbit
- MauranKilom 5y ago> before they get pulled back into the atmosphere by gravity. Irrelevant to the point, but: It's more that they get pulled further down into atmosphere by... atmosphere. With just gravity alone, they'd stay perfectly in orbit.
- smallerfish 5y agoFair point, thanks. :)
- chihuahua 5y agoI think they get pulled down by the combination of atmosphere and gravity. As you pointed out, gravity alone is not sufficient. But also, if there's only an atmosphere but no gravity, they don't get pulled down.
- BenjiWiebe 5y agoIf there's no gravity, they don't orbit. If they orbit with gravity but with no atmosphere, they stay orbiting indefinitely.
- bigcheesegs 5y ago> they stay orbiting indefinitely Not quite true. For example quite a few orbits around the moon are unstable and you will end up crashing into the surface. This is due to essentially all celestial objects not being spherical.
- olivierduval 5y agoI agree: space is a SHARED place... why should some US corp. be able to pollute it ????? And why should US citizen ONLY have something to say about it ???? I can understand that the US may decide what is above its territory, but I surely dont want to MY french nights with Musk or Bezos satellites... and moreover without my consent !
- manquer 5y agoWhile there are some rudimentary frameworks for collaboration in space. It is still free for all. Sovereignty in space above 50 km is complex and not really well established, countries have differing claims like bogota declaration etc. Most countries launch satellites they don't necessarily tell each other. There is nothing stopping a French company from doing the same as spaceX. Infact OneWeb is owned by UK government partially and a Indian teleco Bharti Airtel. They manufacturer satellites in UK (a lot of satellites are manufactured in UK) and launch in Russia. France or any other country does regulate and operators do respect who can transmit/use radio frequencies within their geographic areas.
- olivierduval 5y agoThat's the point: it looks like space is the new "Far West"... Can't we learn from history and - for once - try to talk and agree on common rules and management together BEFORE doing something to a world shared resource ?
- manquer 5y agoThe resource needs to have real value before serious regulations effort is made . Potential value is never enough, for example there is no regulations for asteroid mining today, it would be waste of time to do it now, unless we could actually do it . Satellites before starlink OneWeb were much lesser problem in terms of resources utilization . Starlink growth is unprecedeted in part because there is little regulations stopping them , so the current model has its advantages
- 5y ago
- redconfetti 5y agoI'd rather see disconnected areas get an affordable, stable internet connection, and to be able to benefit the same as the rest of the world.