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I am a science and astronomy fan, but I am sorry, in this case progress is more important. If we regret our decision, the LEOs will fall out of the sky by thems

I am a science and astronomy fan, but I am sorry, in this case progress is more important. If we regret our decision, the LEOs will fall out of the sky by themselves in a few years and it will be ok.

isthatafact 3mo ago
Science is progress. Putting mirrors in space in order to provide sunlight at night seems more like willful destruction than progress.
- Dig1t 3mo ago
  Connectivity for the entire globe does more for progress. Millions of people have access to the wealth of human knowledge that wouldn’t otherwise have it (Africa, rural people around the world). Additionally, what we lose in visibility from earth we will more than gain in visibility from space telescopes, which will be funded by profits provided by LEO satellites. Any way you slice it, it’s a massive net increase in scientific progress and quality of life for many millions of people.
  - isthatafact 3mo ago
    It does not need to be a choice between having internet or seeing stars at night. Also, telescopes on the ground can be made much bigger and more powerful than in space, so even if some satellite profits were somehow (magically?) directed toward space telescopes, losing the night sky would be bad for science.
    - Dig1t 3mo ago
      >It does not need to be a choice between having internet or seeing stars at night. It’s not, we’ll be able to see the stars no matter what. There are many millions of people who are getting real broadband access to the internet for the first time right now because of these satellites. It really does enable an entirely new way of living for people in rural areas, I see this myself firsthand every day. Many areas are just economically not feasible to run fiber cables to. Cheap access to space means you can put space telescopes into orbits that provide views entirely unobtainable from earth. And with cheap access to space we can eventually put space telescopes which exceed the size of the largest ground telescopes which won’t have to deal with atmospheric interference or light pollution at all. Starship will lower the cost to orbit by 15x. Making entirely new types of scientific missions economically viable including extremely large space telescopes.
      - isthatafact 3mo ago
        Telescopes in space are extremely expensive even if the launch itself were completely costless. A decision of whether or not to destroy the dark night sky globally should be made at a societal level beforehand. Instead the path of maximum expected profit for a few people was taken instead of carefully considering the implications, alternatives, and mitigations.
croes 3mo ago
A few years is a large knowledge gap if an asteroid is on its way to us. Not to mention that’s not how it works. We regret burning so much fossil fuel but those who make huge profits from it prevent as much change as they can. You can bet Amazon and SpaceX will do the same no matter how the rest of us regrets it
edelbitter 3mo ago
Some scientific endeavors can be paused and maybe later relaunched, if funding has not dried up and temporarily-worthless machinery has not been left to rot. But stuff like mitigating the constant threat of big enough objects showing up on a collision course with earth should not be paused until those eye-catchers fall out of the sky. If there is something coming at us that can wipe out more than the stock price of one particularly space-enthusiastic company, we should like to know within a time period appropriate for our current planetary defense capabilities. Which will surely improve, over time - so maybe we can pollute the sky, later.
- Legend2440 3mo ago
  >the constant threat of big enough objects showing up on a collision course with earth I don't really think this is a serious risk. This is a once-in-a-million-years kind of event. Also, asteroid detection is not seriously affected by satellites. We can easily tell the difference between a moving satellite and a moving asteroid because of their speed.
  - edelbitter 3mo ago
    We might have even seen the Chelyabinsk one coming, with current tech.. if only it had been coming at us from a slightly less bright direction. That one was probably in the once-in-a-hundred-years category.
    - m4rtink 3mo ago
      That's exactly the thing space asteroid hunting telescopes solve - you can put them insuch a heliocentric orbit that they can watch for those asteroids coming from the direction of the sun.
  - throw0101a 3mo ago
    > I don't really think this is a serious risk. This is a once-in-a-million-years kind of event. Perhaps the last event was one million years ago and we are now (proverbially) 'due'. > The gambler's fallacy, also known as the Monte Carlo fallacy or the fallacy of the maturity of chances, is the belief that an independent and equally probable outcome which happened less frequently than expected is more likely to happen in the future (or vice versa). * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambler%27s_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambler%27s_fallacy It's like people who say "it sure is strange that we had a 'once-in-a-century flood' two years in a row": that's not how odds/probabilities work. * https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/we-had-a-100-year-flood-two-years-a-row-how-can-be https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/we-had-a-100-year-flood-two-years-...
SilverElfin 3mo ago
China’s constellations are going to orbits that will take hundreds of years to return to earth and could make launching much harder if there is a collision. As far as I know only SpaceX has satellites in low orbits that frequently need propulsion to push back up, and fall back within 5 years.
- bpodgursky 3mo ago
  OK and we aren't going to stop China from doing it. They do what they want. So there's nothing to fuss about. This article mentions SpaceX 7 times and China once incidentally, they want to nag SpaceX into doing things that don't matter when China's launches do matter and nobody is going to nag them into decelerating.
- SiempreViernes 3mo ago
  Fun fact: SpaceX has packed some segments of LEO so densely they surpassed the local Kessler syndrome density. In other words, even if the debris deorbits by itself in LEO, you can still cram enough sats in an orbit that just a single impact leads to follow on impacts fast enough to get a runaway chain reaction. https://conference.sdo.esoc.esa.int/proceedings/sdc9/paper/305 https://conference.sdo.esoc.esa.int/proceedings/sdc9/paper/3...
kmaitreys 3mo ago
Can you define what progress is being made by creating more space junk?
- infinitewars 3mo ago
  [dead]
- sokoloff 3mo ago
  Do you ever use GPS (for navigation or time sync)? Do you ever use Starlink? Do you make use of weather forecasts? Or fly on an airliner that uses any of those three? Watch a televised program from the other side of the planet?
  - kmaitreys 3mo ago
    Yes, I can do most of the things now because enough is already up there. Can you elaborate why do you want more? Like a million more as these companies are planning? When is it enough?
    - sokoloff 3mo ago
      Even if literally no new applications popped up, capacity and coverage increases for existing applications require increases in satellite count.
      - kmaitreys 3mo ago
        I'm sorry but this is not a good enough argument for gutting science. You need to justify that capacity and coverage increase is required. The companies trying to make these plans are just looking for money. It's not for some noble goal for progress. If you fail to see that, I'm sorry for you.
expedition32 3mo ago
What progress? Having a dozen separate satellite networks that all do the same thing? This ain't progress it is an indictment of man's stupidity.
deleted 3mo ago
[deleted]

I am a science and astronomy fan, but I am sorry, in this case progress is more important. If we regret our decision, the LEOs will fall out of the sky by themselves in a few years and it will be ok.

isthatafact 3mo ago

Science is progress. Putting mirrors in space in order to provide sunlight at night seems more like willful destruction than progress.

Dig1t 3mo ago
Connectivity for the entire globe does more for progress. Millions of people have access to the wealth of human knowledge that wouldn’t otherwise have it (Africa, rural people around the world). Additionally, what we lose in visibility from earth we will more than gain in visibility from space telescopes, which will be funded by profits provided by LEO satellites. Any way you slice it, it’s a massive net increase in scientific progress and quality of life for many millions of people.
- isthatafact 3mo ago
  It does not need to be a choice between having internet or seeing stars at night. Also, telescopes on the ground can be made much bigger and more powerful than in space, so even if some satellite profits were somehow (magically?) directed toward space telescopes, losing the night sky would be bad for science.
  - Dig1t 3mo ago
    >It does not need to be a choice between having internet or seeing stars at night. It’s not, we’ll be able to see the stars no matter what. There are many millions of people who are getting real broadband access to the internet for the first time right now because of these satellites. It really does enable an entirely new way of living for people in rural areas, I see this myself firsthand every day. Many areas are just economically not feasible to run fiber cables to. Cheap access to space means you can put space telescopes into orbits that provide views entirely unobtainable from earth. And with cheap access to space we can eventually put space telescopes which exceed the size of the largest ground telescopes which won’t have to deal with atmospheric interference or light pollution at all. Starship will lower the cost to orbit by 15x. Making entirely new types of scientific missions economically viable including extremely large space telescopes.
    - isthatafact 3mo ago
      Telescopes in space are extremely expensive even if the launch itself were completely costless. A decision of whether or not to destroy the dark night sky globally should be made at a societal level beforehand. Instead the path of maximum expected profit for a few people was taken instead of carefully considering the implications, alternatives, and mitigations.

croes 3mo ago

A few years is a large knowledge gap if an asteroid is on its way to us. Not to mention that’s not how it works. We regret burning so much fossil fuel but those who make huge profits from it prevent as much change as they can. You can bet Amazon and SpaceX will do the same no matter how the rest of us regrets it

edelbitter 3mo ago

Some scientific endeavors can be paused and maybe later relaunched, if funding has not dried up and temporarily-worthless machinery has not been left to rot. But stuff like mitigating the constant threat of big enough objects showing up on a collision course with earth should not be paused until those eye-catchers fall out of the sky. If there is something coming at us that can wipe out more than the stock price of one particularly space-enthusiastic company, we should like to know within a time period appropriate for our current planetary defense capabilities. Which will surely improve, over time - so maybe we can pollute the sky, later.

Legend2440 3mo ago
>the constant threat of big enough objects showing up on a collision course with earth I don't really think this is a serious risk. This is a once-in-a-million-years kind of event. Also, asteroid detection is not seriously affected by satellites. We can easily tell the difference between a moving satellite and a moving asteroid because of their speed.
- edelbitter 3mo ago
  We might have even seen the Chelyabinsk one coming, with current tech.. if only it had been coming at us from a slightly less bright direction. That one was probably in the once-in-a-hundred-years category.
  - m4rtink 3mo ago
    That's exactly the thing space asteroid hunting telescopes solve - you can put them insuch a heliocentric orbit that they can watch for those asteroids coming from the direction of the sun.
- throw0101a 3mo ago
  > I don't really think this is a serious risk. This is a once-in-a-million-years kind of event. Perhaps the last event was one million years ago and we are now (proverbially) 'due'. > The gambler's fallacy, also known as the Monte Carlo fallacy or the fallacy of the maturity of chances, is the belief that an independent and equally probable outcome which happened less frequently than expected is more likely to happen in the future (or vice versa). * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambler%27s_fallacy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gambler%27s_fallacy It's like people who say "it sure is strange that we had a 'once-in-a-century flood' two years in a row": that's not how odds/probabilities work. * https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/we-had-a-100-year-flood-two-years-a-row-how-can-be https://www.usgs.gov/faqs/we-had-a-100-year-flood-two-years-...

SilverElfin 3mo ago

China’s constellations are going to orbits that will take hundreds of years to return to earth and could make launching much harder if there is a collision. As far as I know only SpaceX has satellites in low orbits that frequently need propulsion to push back up, and fall back within 5 years.

bpodgursky 3mo ago
OK and we aren't going to stop China from doing it. They do what they want. So there's nothing to fuss about. This article mentions SpaceX 7 times and China once incidentally, they want to nag SpaceX into doing things that don't matter when China's launches do matter and nobody is going to nag them into decelerating.
SiempreViernes 3mo ago
Fun fact: SpaceX has packed some segments of LEO so densely they surpassed the local Kessler syndrome density. In other words, even if the debris deorbits by itself in LEO, you can still cram enough sats in an orbit that just a single impact leads to follow on impacts fast enough to get a runaway chain reaction. https://conference.sdo.esoc.esa.int/proceedings/sdc9/paper/305 https://conference.sdo.esoc.esa.int/proceedings/sdc9/paper/3...

kmaitreys 3mo ago

Can you define what progress is being made by creating more space junk?

infinitewars 3mo ago
[dead]
sokoloff 3mo ago
Do you ever use GPS (for navigation or time sync)? Do you ever use Starlink? Do you make use of weather forecasts? Or fly on an airliner that uses any of those three? Watch a televised program from the other side of the planet?
- kmaitreys 3mo ago
  Yes, I can do most of the things now because enough is already up there. Can you elaborate why do you want more? Like a million more as these companies are planning? When is it enough?
  - sokoloff 3mo ago
    Even if literally no new applications popped up, capacity and coverage increases for existing applications require increases in satellite count.
    - kmaitreys 3mo ago
      I'm sorry but this is not a good enough argument for gutting science. You need to justify that capacity and coverage increase is required. The companies trying to make these plans are just looking for money. It's not for some noble goal for progress. If you fail to see that, I'm sorry for you.

expedition32 3mo ago

What progress? Having a dozen separate satellite networks that all do the same thing? This ain't progress it is an indictment of man's stupidity.

deleted 3mo ago

[deleted]