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Sure, in the same way that Ferrari doubling its production means more people can get their kids to school conveniently.

by ethanbond 3y ago

jbm 3y ago
Isn't Starship the cheap option for orbital launch?
- ethanbond 3y ago
  But the whole point is if you ruin thousands of terrestrial telescopes used (successfully) by thousands of researchers, and in exchange you get a promise of one day maybe having tons of orbital telescopes, you aren’t really addressing the concern.
  - zpeti 3y ago
    Come on, you are arguing in such bad faith its ridiculous. Everyone knows space based telescopes are orders of magnitude better, and will be better for research than thousands of earth based telescopes. Even the researches, unless very selfish, should know that ideally you want many more very powerful space based telescopes if you actually want to do research and not just marvel at the stars from your patio. We obviously want larger launch capacity in the long run. It's not even a question. Falcon 9 is already the most successful rocket ever on almost all stats of usefulness, why shouldn't we have at least SOME faith that spacex will be able to build starship and use it?
    - ethanbond 3y ago
      > Everyone knows space based telescopes are orders of magnitude better, and will be better for research than thousands of earth based telescopes Real terrestrial telescopes are better than hypothetical space-based ones. And I didn’t say we don’t want more capacity nor that Falcon 9 isn’t the most successful rocket ever, nor that I don’t have faith in SpaceX’s ability to create Starship, nor that Starship won’t eventually add space-based telescopes. I said that none of that actually addresses the current concerns of people who currently need to do their work, as GP implied their complaints are totally irrelevant because “someday we’ll launch more.”
- ben_w 3y ago
  It's a steam-liner in an age of sailing galleons, hopefully it will make an orbital ring (analogous to budget airlines) affordable.
fastball 3y ago
I don't think I understand the analogy.
- ethanbond 3y ago
  Adding capacity at the tippy top of the market, while destroying capacity at the much larger middle/bottom of the market, is very unlikely to be net positive.
  - fastball 3y ago
    Gotcha, a couple points: - Starlink interferes with terrestrial telescopy much less than the baseline issues such as weather, atmosphere, etc. - SpaceX has already done great work in ameliorating these issues anyway with better non-reflective coatings and design. - Telescopes in space are orders of magnitude more useful than terrestrial ones, so it would not be a surprising net positive at all. - Even if the previous point weren't true, telescopes are not really equivalent to taking kids to school. One is a necessity, the other is a nice to have. The truth is that most of the low-hanging astronomical fruit that can be gleaned from the "middle/bottom of the market" has already been picked anyway. Almost all new/significant astronomical discoveries/research are happening with space-based telescopes for exactly this reason. People aren't unraveling the secrets of the universe with a telescope in their backyard anymore. - This entire situation has really nothing to do with Starship being a good thing. You can argue that Starlink is a net negative (for all the above reasons this seems hard to justify in practice), but that argument is orthogonal to whether or not Starship is good. This isn't really your fault because the parent comment is the one that initially conflated the two, but I felt this point should be made.
    - ethanbond 3y ago
      These seem like good points! I personally don’t have a super strong idea of how destructive Starlink is, so totally open to the idea that “the astronomers don’t know what they’re talking about.” Just that’s a very different argument than “astronomers should shut up because some day we hope to put up telescopes they’ll probably never be able to use,” which is basically GP’s argument. In any case the degree of interference thing isn’t too comforting since I would assume these issues are additive to one another. Thank you for the good counterpoints! Would love to hear an astronomer’s take on whether the terrestrial-hanging-fruit has been picked, so to speak. It would not surprise me for sure.
theodric 3y ago
In this case, Starship is really more akin to a bus than a sports car

Sure, in the same way that Ferrari doubling its production means more people can get their kids to school conveniently.

jbm 3y ago

Isn't Starship the cheap option for orbital launch?

ethanbond 3y ago
But the whole point is if you ruin thousands of terrestrial telescopes used (successfully) by thousands of researchers, and in exchange you get a promise of one day maybe having tons of orbital telescopes, you aren’t really addressing the concern.
- zpeti 3y ago
  Come on, you are arguing in such bad faith its ridiculous. Everyone knows space based telescopes are orders of magnitude better, and will be better for research than thousands of earth based telescopes. Even the researches, unless very selfish, should know that ideally you want many more very powerful space based telescopes if you actually want to do research and not just marvel at the stars from your patio. We obviously want larger launch capacity in the long run. It's not even a question. Falcon 9 is already the most successful rocket ever on almost all stats of usefulness, why shouldn't we have at least SOME faith that spacex will be able to build starship and use it?
  - ethanbond 3y ago
    > Everyone knows space based telescopes are orders of magnitude better, and will be better for research than thousands of earth based telescopes Real terrestrial telescopes are better than hypothetical space-based ones. And I didn’t say we don’t want more capacity nor that Falcon 9 isn’t the most successful rocket ever, nor that I don’t have faith in SpaceX’s ability to create Starship, nor that Starship won’t eventually add space-based telescopes. I said that none of that actually addresses the current concerns of people who currently need to do their work, as GP implied their complaints are totally irrelevant because “someday we’ll launch more.”
ben_w 3y ago
It's a steam-liner in an age of sailing galleons, hopefully it will make an orbital ring (analogous to budget airlines) affordable.

fastball 3y ago

I don't think I understand the analogy.

ethanbond 3y ago
Adding capacity at the tippy top of the market, while destroying capacity at the much larger middle/bottom of the market, is very unlikely to be net positive.
- fastball 3y ago
  Gotcha, a couple points: - Starlink interferes with terrestrial telescopy much less than the baseline issues such as weather, atmosphere, etc. - SpaceX has already done great work in ameliorating these issues anyway with better non-reflective coatings and design. - Telescopes in space are orders of magnitude more useful than terrestrial ones, so it would not be a surprising net positive at all. - Even if the previous point weren't true, telescopes are not really equivalent to taking kids to school. One is a necessity, the other is a nice to have. The truth is that most of the low-hanging astronomical fruit that can be gleaned from the "middle/bottom of the market" has already been picked anyway. Almost all new/significant astronomical discoveries/research are happening with space-based telescopes for exactly this reason. People aren't unraveling the secrets of the universe with a telescope in their backyard anymore. - This entire situation has really nothing to do with Starship being a good thing. You can argue that Starlink is a net negative (for all the above reasons this seems hard to justify in practice), but that argument is orthogonal to whether or not Starship is good. This isn't really your fault because the parent comment is the one that initially conflated the two, but I felt this point should be made.
  - ethanbond 3y ago
    These seem like good points! I personally don’t have a super strong idea of how destructive Starlink is, so totally open to the idea that “the astronomers don’t know what they’re talking about.” Just that’s a very different argument than “astronomers should shut up because some day we hope to put up telescopes they’ll probably never be able to use,” which is basically GP’s argument. In any case the degree of interference thing isn’t too comforting since I would assume these issues are additive to one another. Thank you for the good counterpoints! Would love to hear an astronomer’s take on whether the terrestrial-hanging-fruit has been picked, so to speak. It would not surprise me for sure.

theodric 3y ago

In this case, Starship is really more akin to a bus than a sports car