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The long-term balancing is whether humanity can take over Earth's orbit and build out advanced technology there, or not. I think in the long run, radio astronom

The long-term balancing is whether humanity can take over Earth's orbit and build out advanced technology there, or not. I think in the long run, radio astronomy is the one that will have to bend. If your receiver is so sensitive it's intolerant of stray EMI from a circuit board in outer space, there's no reasonable way to adapt to that—it's unreasonable to ask an entire planet to turn into a radio-quiet zone over its entire orbital shell. Intentional broadcasts are one thing—that's what spectrum licensing regulations are for. Minor EMI is a bridge too far. Further context: the signal strengths they're talking about are equivalents of isotropic emitters in the *milliwatt* power range, detectable down to the microwatts—detectable at ranges of thousands of kilometers, https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/full_html/2023/10/aa47654-23/aa47654-23.html https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/full_html/2023/10/aa47654-... ("Detection of intended and unintended emissions from Starlink satellites in the SKA-Low frequency range, at the SKA-Low site, with an SKA-Low station analogue") > "The flashes reach a maximum intensity of approximately 10^6 Jy beam^−1 at ranges of ∼500 km (EIRP ∼ 30 mW) and a minimum intensity of approximately 2000 Jy beam^−1 at ranges of ∼2000 km (EIRP ∼ 1 mW)" Further context: part of the EMI isn't a fixable circuit design issue—it's (I understand) EMI from normal operation of ion thrusters, > "The authors have been in communication with SpaceX (who owns, builds, and operates the Starlink constellation), who explains that this radiation is likely due to the satellites’ propulsion or avionics system and is likely over 50–200 MHz (SpaceX 2023, priv. comm.) The propulsion system is actively engaged during the time this train is detected. This radiation is therefore in the class of UEMR."

rickdeckard 1y ago
> If your receiver is so sensitive it's intolerant of stray EMI from a circuit board in outer space [...] Well, that's what is required to receive a weak signal from beyond that circuit board, from outer space. > there's no reasonable way to adapt to that You'd be surprised what becomes reasonable and possible once a requirement is set. > it's unreasonable to ask an entire planet to turn into a radio-quiet zone. Noone is asking that. It's reasonable to require radio interference of a device to stay within defined boundaries. This is the case in all other industries as well, why shouldn't it suddenly apply for a fleet of satellites which blast radio signals from outer space to earth?
- perihelions 1y ago
  > "This is the case in all other industries as well," No; it really isn't. There's no industry on the planet where "must accept" regulations are set by the world's most sensitive physics experiments. Do we set acoustic noise regulations by what a LIGO interferometer can measure? Of course not. We'd have to outlaw the mechanical engine were it so. Regress to a medieval society of horse people (very small horses with noise-absorbing horseshoes). Do we regulate nuclear power by what astrophysical neutrino detectors perceive? Also, no. Even though they see fission reactors on the other side of the planet, and it is noise to them. The prior art is we that set noise regulations by what interferes with actual humans in their actual day-to-day functioning; and we set RF regulations by what interferes with the functioning of other circuits useful to humans. Not exotic physics experiments. This is a new thing to ask; and it is bold.
  - rickdeckard 1y ago
    > There's no industry on the planet where "must accept" regulations are set by the world's most sensitive physics experiments. The criteria is not industry vs. "world's most sensitive physics experiments", it's industry vs. "agreed activity for public/societal benefit". And there are many examples for it. We regulate light/noise and other pollution in consideration of wildlife and plants, we regulate nuclear waste disposal considering our responsibilities to the greater public good. We could also not regulate anything with regards to wildlife and plants, there is no immediate economic benefit to preserve all variants of rhinos, tigers, reptiles etc., we could kill all plants except the most resilient one, it's much more economic to maintain them in long-term then. We could also globally agree to dispose all nuclear waste in one place on earth and just never go there again. Actually we could disband entities like the EPA, because we can figure out solutions to each environmental impact on-demand if there's enough incentive for it. But we don't, because there is (or used to be) consensus that there are also goals beyond short-term economic growth. Areas of interest for greater society, for mankind if you will.
- generalizations 1y ago
  > You'd be surprised what becomes reasonable and possible once a requirement is set. In that case, I'm not sure why you're concerned. Let's flip this around: set up our regulations to loosen our EMI radiation restrictions & facilitate our satellites and space exploration. According to your logic, that should be perfectly reasonable to astronomers, if that's what the regulations say, and it should be possible for them to adapt to that. If that's not what you meant, then astronomy needs to make some concessions.
carefulfungi 1y ago
Progress is always the argument for pollution.
jacquesm 1y ago
Humanity doesn't own SpaceX. If humanity would have a vote on this I'd be happy to agree with you but it is just one US corporation that does this and they don't get to decide for all of us. If they just did their thing above the USA that would be another matter entirely but that's not how this works, as you well know. So you slip in the 'for the greater good' argument that does not necessarily hold and besides which isn't up to SpaceX to decide, especially not unilaterally.
- perihelions 1y ago
  > "but it is just one US corporation that does this and they don't get to decide for all of us" I don't understand your comment on so many levels. The ITU treaties do exist, and they do protect observational astronomy bands, and everything here is *in compliance with* extant ITU regs. As I quoted above. I can turn your words on your head: who are astronomers to make arbitrary choices for rest of the human species? Or, who are HN to? People do want their gadgets to work. They value that more highly than many things, things more important than mere astronomy experiments—more highly than human rights, for example (to contemplate all the slave labor in the modern electronics supply chains). On another level: you say it's just one one company, but that company is obviously just an early-adopter, leading-edge of a great horde of space companies going in for the gold rush. There will be many others, and then there will be the Chinese military, and—do you think there will be more favorable outcomes negotiating with the PLA, filing complaints to the PLA over the RFI of their prized military assets? Yeah; no. In 5-10 years the landscape will certainly be utterly unrecognizable, and it will not be a SpaceX hegemony any longer. You will be opposed to a hundred adversaries of many nations—not just that one. And following after that, there will be humans and human tourists going up, pretty soon I'd bet; by the thousands; and they'll be bringing their electronics gadgets up to visit, and later inhabit, Earth orbit. Have you internalized the numbers we're discussing here? This telescope array can detect the equivalent of a short-range wireless Bluetooth gadget at 2,000 kilometers range—and they're complaining about it, they want that banned. (Literally—if it weren't for the earth in between us, my wireless mouse right here could be radiating greater signal power through your body, dear reader, no matter where you are right now on the planet, than these satellites flashes we're discussing here. Click, click.) No way is that compatible with a future of humans inhabiting space. The space RF environment is, incomprehensibly pristine as it stands... but that won't last, can't last, there's no way humanity moving to the stars will preserve that pristine silence, you might us well give up right away. Fighting it is futile, foolish, misguided, and more than a little misanthropic.
labcomputer 1y ago
> If your receiver is so sensitive it's intolerant of stray EMI from a circuit board in outer space, there's no reasonable way to adapt to that They also mentioned detecting narrowband transmissions from a commercial FM station, 300km from the radio observatory that reflected off the satellite. Which, like, cool that they can detect that, but you completely lost me if want to ban all metallic objects in earth orbit.
- frende 1y ago
  Just send up a satellite that uses solar power to spew out sticky dust to cover everything metallic. The dust would be fairly efficient, as it would continue to orbit and stick to things over time. Yes, this could cause problems, like loss of GPS, weather prediction and other scientific equipment, and enemies wouldn’t be able to keep an eye on each other as easily, leading to wars. But, maybe light pollution would be less annoying.
- perihelions 1y ago
  That was the original type of communication satellite—the passive metal balloon, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Echo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Echo ("Project Echo" (1960-69)) (Here's a historic irony: the field of radio astronomy was founded by people doing this stuff. The cosmic microwave background was discovered, by accident, with an RF horn built for this satellite relay experiment). (Here's another weird one:) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_West_Ford https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_West_Ford ("Project West Ford" (1961-63)) ("The goal of the project was to place a ring of 480,000,000 copper dipole antennas in orbit to facilitate global radio communication")

rickdeckard 1y ago

> If your receiver is so sensitive it's intolerant of stray EMI from a circuit board in outer space [...] Well, that's what is required to receive a weak signal from beyond that circuit board, from outer space. > there's no reasonable way to adapt to that You'd be surprised what becomes reasonable and possible once a requirement is set. > it's unreasonable to ask an entire planet to turn into a radio-quiet zone. Noone is asking that. It's reasonable to require radio interference of a device to stay within defined boundaries. This is the case in all other industries as well, why shouldn't it suddenly apply for a fleet of satellites which blast radio signals from outer space to earth?

perihelions 1y ago
> "This is the case in all other industries as well," No; it really isn't. There's no industry on the planet where "must accept" regulations are set by the world's most sensitive physics experiments. Do we set acoustic noise regulations by what a LIGO interferometer can measure? Of course not. We'd have to outlaw the mechanical engine were it so. Regress to a medieval society of horse people (very small horses with noise-absorbing horseshoes). Do we regulate nuclear power by what astrophysical neutrino detectors perceive? Also, no. Even though they see fission reactors on the other side of the planet, and it is noise to them. The prior art is we that set noise regulations by what interferes with actual humans in their actual day-to-day functioning; and we set RF regulations by what interferes with the functioning of other circuits useful to humans. Not exotic physics experiments. This is a new thing to ask; and it is bold.
- rickdeckard 1y ago
  > There's no industry on the planet where "must accept" regulations are set by the world's most sensitive physics experiments. The criteria is not industry vs. "world's most sensitive physics experiments", it's industry vs. "agreed activity for public/societal benefit". And there are many examples for it. We regulate light/noise and other pollution in consideration of wildlife and plants, we regulate nuclear waste disposal considering our responsibilities to the greater public good. We could also not regulate anything with regards to wildlife and plants, there is no immediate economic benefit to preserve all variants of rhinos, tigers, reptiles etc., we could kill all plants except the most resilient one, it's much more economic to maintain them in long-term then. We could also globally agree to dispose all nuclear waste in one place on earth and just never go there again. Actually we could disband entities like the EPA, because we can figure out solutions to each environmental impact on-demand if there's enough incentive for it. But we don't, because there is (or used to be) consensus that there are also goals beyond short-term economic growth. Areas of interest for greater society, for mankind if you will.
generalizations 1y ago
> You'd be surprised what becomes reasonable and possible once a requirement is set. In that case, I'm not sure why you're concerned. Let's flip this around: set up our regulations to loosen our EMI radiation restrictions & facilitate our satellites and space exploration. According to your logic, that should be perfectly reasonable to astronomers, if that's what the regulations say, and it should be possible for them to adapt to that. If that's not what you meant, then astronomy needs to make some concessions.

carefulfungi 1y ago

Progress is always the argument for pollution.

jacquesm 1y ago

Humanity doesn't own SpaceX. If humanity would have a vote on this I'd be happy to agree with you but it is just one US corporation that does this and they don't get to decide for all of us. If they just did their thing above the USA that would be another matter entirely but that's not how this works, as you well know. So you slip in the 'for the greater good' argument that does not necessarily hold and besides which isn't up to SpaceX to decide, especially not unilaterally.

perihelions 1y ago
> "but it is just one US corporation that does this and they don't get to decide for all of us" I don't understand your comment on so many levels. The ITU treaties do exist, and they do protect observational astronomy bands, and everything here is *in compliance with* extant ITU regs. As I quoted above. I can turn your words on your head: who are astronomers to make arbitrary choices for rest of the human species? Or, who are HN to? People do want their gadgets to work. They value that more highly than many things, things more important than mere astronomy experiments—more highly than human rights, for example (to contemplate all the slave labor in the modern electronics supply chains). On another level: you say it's just one one company, but that company is obviously just an early-adopter, leading-edge of a great horde of space companies going in for the gold rush. There will be many others, and then there will be the Chinese military, and—do you think there will be more favorable outcomes negotiating with the PLA, filing complaints to the PLA over the RFI of their prized military assets? Yeah; no. In 5-10 years the landscape will certainly be utterly unrecognizable, and it will not be a SpaceX hegemony any longer. You will be opposed to a hundred adversaries of many nations—not just that one. And following after that, there will be humans and human tourists going up, pretty soon I'd bet; by the thousands; and they'll be bringing their electronics gadgets up to visit, and later inhabit, Earth orbit. Have you internalized the numbers we're discussing here? This telescope array can detect the equivalent of a short-range wireless Bluetooth gadget at 2,000 kilometers range—and they're complaining about it, they want that banned. (Literally—if it weren't for the earth in between us, my wireless mouse right here could be radiating greater signal power through your body, dear reader, no matter where you are right now on the planet, than these satellites flashes we're discussing here. Click, click.) No way is that compatible with a future of humans inhabiting space. The space RF environment is, incomprehensibly pristine as it stands... but that won't last, can't last, there's no way humanity moving to the stars will preserve that pristine silence, you might us well give up right away. Fighting it is futile, foolish, misguided, and more than a little misanthropic.

labcomputer 1y ago

> If your receiver is so sensitive it's intolerant of stray EMI from a circuit board in outer space, there's no reasonable way to adapt to that They also mentioned detecting narrowband transmissions from a commercial FM station, 300km from the radio observatory that reflected off the satellite. Which, like, cool that they can detect that, but you completely lost me if want to ban all metallic objects in earth orbit.

frende 1y ago
Just send up a satellite that uses solar power to spew out sticky dust to cover everything metallic. The dust would be fairly efficient, as it would continue to orbit and stick to things over time. Yes, this could cause problems, like loss of GPS, weather prediction and other scientific equipment, and enemies wouldn’t be able to keep an eye on each other as easily, leading to wars. But, maybe light pollution would be less annoying.
perihelions 1y ago
That was the original type of communication satellite—the passive metal balloon, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Echo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Echo ("Project Echo" (1960-69)) (Here's a historic irony: the field of radio astronomy was founded by people doing this stuff. The cosmic microwave background was discovered, by accident, with an RF horn built for this satellite relay experiment). (Here's another weird one:) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_West_Ford https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_West_Ford ("Project West Ford" (1961-63)) ("The goal of the project was to place a ring of 480,000,000 copper dipole antennas in orbit to facilitate global radio communication")