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Some of these concerns have also been voiced by ESA. There's two main problems with it. One is taking up all the orbits and bandwidth simply by being there firs
by mateo1 4y ago
Some of these concerns have also been voiced by ESA. There's two main problems with it. One is taking up all the orbits and bandwidth simply by being there first (on a race to monopolize LEO), and the other is putting dual use technology in space. Both of them are rational concerns and afaik they remain unanswered.
- djohnston 4y agoWhat is dual use technology?
- kurupt213 4y agoCivilian and military
- rlt 4y agoSpace is big, even LEO. As long as the large majority of all satellites have active collision avoidance, and coordinate between them, this shouldn’t be a problem. I’m not sure if there’s an international body working to coordinate this, but there should be. Starship, if successful, will also change the economics of bringing down non-maneuverable satellites. I could see SpaceX cleaning up space junk as a public service. Uplink/downlink bandwidth is licensed by the countries being uplinked/downlinked from/to, so that’s on them. China will no doubt not grant SpaceX a license. Lots of space tech is “dual use”, e.x. GPS and many other communication satellites. As long as SpaceX isn’t hiding warheads on Starlink satellites or something I don’t see a problem.
- samtheDamned 4y ago> “The LEO can accommodate about 50,000 satellites, over 80% of which would be taken by Starlink if the program were to launch 42,000 satellites as it has planned.” How do you think they came up with that 50,000 satellite figure? Is that an underestimation? LEO is big but it will get harder as it gets saturated by starlink and especially if other companies try to create their own variations of the idea like amazon has expressed interest in.