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I'm so sick of people acting like Starlink is the end of terrestrial telescopes. Fucking insane. Actually inform yourself. A very low number of terrestrial tele

by nickik 3y ago

I'm so sick of people acting like Starlink is the end of terrestrial telescopes. Fucking insane. Actually inform yourself. A very low number of terrestrial telescope sometimes lose a slight amount of information. Terrestrial astronomy is fine and will continue to be fine.

cmsj 3y ago
It would, however, be foolish to assume that Starlink will be the only constellation of low orbit satellites.
ethanbond 3y ago
How would you recommend informing oneself? From all the searching I’ve done and the conversations I’ve had, it’s basically: space agencies and astronomy groups are saying this project (and similar) will end up destroying billions of dollars of equipment, discourage further investment, create a ton of space debris, etc etc, then on the other side mostly people who get emotional about defending every Musk project and make arguments like “that’s okay because we’ll hopefully put up space telescopes in the future that will somehow satisfy the same demand for telescope time.” I am not an expert at all but that at first blush that seems like bullshit. I’m 100% open to sources of info I should check out on this though. Edit: FWIW another more believable argument than hypothetical future capacity satisfying the same demand would be “global internet is more important than terrestrial astronomy.” Not quite ready to say I agree with it but it seems very compelling!
- panick21_ 3y ago
  There are presentations about this from astronomers and SpaceX. Where they present their issues and SpaceX presents what they doing about it. These are public and can be found. I don't remember where but they were youtube videos for different conferences. I can try to find a video when I have more time. I have not heard a single one claim that it will 'destroying billions of dollars of equipment'. And most don't want to stop further space craft. What they do call for is regulation about these things in general. SpaceX is basically doing them a favor by modifying their sats, there is no legal obligation.
  - ethanbond 3y ago
    Here’s a single $680MM observatory that looks pretty pissed and is struggling to figure out how they’ll deal with it. Granted probably won’t drive the value to zero, but it probably will devalue the project quite substantially, from my read. https://www.lsst.org/content/lsst-statement-regarding-increased-deployment-satellite-constellations https://www.lsst.org/content/lsst-statement-regarding-increa... And I’m not arguing for stopping further spacecraft either. “Hey they don’t even legally need to mitigate their externalities!” is usually a good sign of “things that need regulation.”
    - panick21_ 3y ago
      As I said, I was not arguing about regulation being bad. My point was its completely false to say that earth based astronomy is over. A minority of telescopes are not effected or slightly effected. But even small effects now will grow if you imagine sats going exponential. The very broad survey orient visible telescopes are most effected of course. Regulation both for visibility and for debris is warranted. But getting their by streaming 'earth astronomy is over and Kessler syndrome' is pretty counter-productive. If we can get away from that kind of language maybe we can actually make reasonable progress on these questions. Unfortunately I can not find the series of lectures from astronomers and SpaceX. That had really go information. But there is an active working group somewhere that is meeting regularly that can probably be found somewhere.
      - ethanbond 3y ago
        I don’t think I (or anyone I’ve seen in this thread) has said “earth astronomy is over” or anything similar. They’ve said: this incurs a huge negative externality on the astronomy community. The response was: it doesn’t matter because Starship will send up space telescopes at some point hopefully (TBD how long it’ll take, if ever, for them to reach the same availability as extant terrestrial telescopes) That is the counterproductive response.

by nickik 3y ago

cmsj 3y ago

It would, however, be foolish to assume that Starlink will be the only constellation of low orbit satellites.

ethanbond 3y ago

How would you recommend informing oneself? From all the searching I’ve done and the conversations I’ve had, it’s basically: space agencies and astronomy groups are saying this project (and similar) will end up destroying billions of dollars of equipment, discourage further investment, create a ton of space debris, etc etc, then on the other side mostly people who get emotional about defending every Musk project and make arguments like “that’s okay because we’ll hopefully put up space telescopes in the future that will somehow satisfy the same demand for telescope time.” I am not an expert at all but that at first blush that seems like bullshit. I’m 100% open to sources of info I should check out on this though. Edit: FWIW another more believable argument than hypothetical future capacity satisfying the same demand would be “global internet is more important than terrestrial astronomy.” Not quite ready to say I agree with it but it seems very compelling!

panick21_ 3y ago
There are presentations about this from astronomers and SpaceX. Where they present their issues and SpaceX presents what they doing about it. These are public and can be found. I don't remember where but they were youtube videos for different conferences. I can try to find a video when I have more time. I have not heard a single one claim that it will 'destroying billions of dollars of equipment'. And most don't want to stop further space craft. What they do call for is regulation about these things in general. SpaceX is basically doing them a favor by modifying their sats, there is no legal obligation.
- ethanbond 3y ago
  Here’s a single $680MM observatory that looks pretty pissed and is struggling to figure out how they’ll deal with it. Granted probably won’t drive the value to zero, but it probably will devalue the project quite substantially, from my read. https://www.lsst.org/content/lsst-statement-regarding-increased-deployment-satellite-constellations https://www.lsst.org/content/lsst-statement-regarding-increa... And I’m not arguing for stopping further spacecraft either. “Hey they don’t even legally need to mitigate their externalities!” is usually a good sign of “things that need regulation.”
  - panick21_ 3y ago
    As I said, I was not arguing about regulation being bad. My point was its completely false to say that earth based astronomy is over. A minority of telescopes are not effected or slightly effected. But even small effects now will grow if you imagine sats going exponential. The very broad survey orient visible telescopes are most effected of course. Regulation both for visibility and for debris is warranted. But getting their by streaming 'earth astronomy is over and Kessler syndrome' is pretty counter-productive. If we can get away from that kind of language maybe we can actually make reasonable progress on these questions. Unfortunately I can not find the series of lectures from astronomers and SpaceX. That had really go information. But there is an active working group somewhere that is meeting regularly that can probably be found somewhere.
    - ethanbond 3y ago
      I don’t think I (or anyone I’ve seen in this thread) has said “earth astronomy is over” or anything similar. They’ve said: this incurs a huge negative externality on the astronomy community. The response was: it doesn’t matter because Starship will send up space telescopes at some point hopefully (TBD how long it’ll take, if ever, for them to reach the same availability as extant terrestrial telescopes) That is the counterproductive response.