Scientists, looking deep into space, have long voiced their concerns that satellites are encroaching on their ability to study the cosmos.
On Reddit I remember getting called a “space Karen” for pointing this out in a discussion about Starlink. Elon Musk fanboys are some of the worst. Second only to Q fanboys.
Well the issue is that not everything is black and white.
On one hand, these satellites can potentially absolutely wreak havok on astronomy, and our own view of the night sky. Nobody wants that.
On the other hand, in a few years, these satellites are able to provide cheap internet all over the planet, which would allow poor remote communities in South America, Africa, and Asia access to the internet, which is practically impossible through any other means. IMO, its worth the tradeoff. I think helping people is more important than astronomy, but I recognize that that’s just my opinion
poor remote communities in South America
Ironically, starlink was used by illegal miners on the Amazon to coordinate operations and avoid policing.
Okay but you’re falling into Elon’s trap. You can’t weigh future potential against current harm naively. Particularly when it comes from somebody with a long history of over promising and under delivering. Since we pay the full price up front (loss of science, etc) but will never reap the full benefits promised.
For instance: it could help remote villages or third world countries. But Starlink costs a pretty penny in western money those places lack. Otherwise they would already have traditional infrastructure.
It’s not a distant future, the benefits are already here and increasing with each launch.
I’ve been tracking a sailboat crossing the Atlantic Ocean the past weeks which have been able to upload videos to YouTube everyday, something that would be impossible without Starlink.
Of course, this specific use case isn’t important, just used it to point out that Starlink is already working well.
which would allow poor remote communities in South America, Africa, and Asia access to the internet, which is practically impossible through any other means.
“Practically impossible” is a horrible way to describe it. It’s not practically impossible; the solution and methods are eminently doable, they just aren’t done (yet) because of cost in poor areas with relatively weak governments. Most of those areas will get reliable non-satellite internet in the years to come.
We can talk up the good of systems like Starlink without hyping it up as delivering something that is otherwise impossible.
all these comments discussing ukraine wartime internet, or poorer communities in south america. meanwhile, i have zero interest in musk, but starlink has been a fantastic Internet option for me in rural US.
my other options are borderline unusable DSL, or a couple of line-of-sight wireless providers which would require cutting down who knows how many trees to even have a hope of connectivity.
there are a significant number of people living in this area, but no decent wired or cellular internet options and despite my state getting a large federal grant to improve internet speeds, I have zero expectation it will be improved for me.
It sounds insane but you should look into building a rural ISP. This guy in Michigan did it and he can barely keep up with demand in his rural community.
I strongly dislike Elon Musk but Starlink is a net win, and science can and must evolve to overcome these sorts of challenges. Nearby space is only going to get more crowded
I have to agree here. I think a temporary compromise could be reducing the constellation size, spread out the dishes and reduce throughput. The accessibility Starlink offers is a 11/10 win for the world. But the bandwidth and size should come after we have better mitigation for Kessler Syndrome and inference with observing the universe. Alternatively, lets slap some big fuckin’ telescopes on the moon and call it a day!
Fanboys for anyone are the worst.
We as fucking adults should be able to criticize anything and anyone we believe in. Especially if you believe in them.
That’s called security in your beliefs, go figure that our chronically insecure populace would refuse to question their beliefs
so many people tie their self worth to something ridiculous, like a personality, or a sports team, or politician, and absolutely lose their mind over any criticism or wrong doing, because they take it as a personal assault on them.
I think it’s understandable to want to be a part of something bigger, and we want to defend our comfort zones so people get carried away.
To me, it’s just immature
Look, anyone who can fit a laser beam and a grappling hook inside a wrist-watch deserves your respect.
Yeah, and if we did not abandon our traditional networks then there would not be such a strong market for STARMLINK.
If New Zealand can manage damn near 100% cellular coverage, and we have some pretty reasonable mountains, why can’t others?
You could receive normal satellite internet the same way, the advantage starlink brings is that it’s much lower latency than geosynchronous satellites and they’re selling it for much less and more bandwith.
Sounds to me like it’s about time we build an observatory on the moon.
I hear you, but let me propose: prison on the moon, and we send Elon there.
I’m okay with the Moon eventually becoming a good place to visit maybe after several several generations – hopefully this time with less of a chance to displace native populations. It’s only slightly more hostile to human life than Australia after all.
I do wonder how much the average people commenting would care if musk had nothing to do with this.
It’s an issue, but it’s an issue scientists knew was coming for decades now. Starlink isn’t the only company putting satellites into low earth orbit. They aren’t the first and the amount of them will just keep coming.
What we need is regulations and requirements for how many, what purpose, how they’ll be dealt with if something goes wrong and when they’re no longer needed, etc. Getting people to share satellites that are already there (when possible) and not putting up satellites that are redundant or don’t provide that much benefit versus non-satellite options or further orbit options will be important.
But all these mindless circlejerkers only talking about musk and wanting starlink “taken down” are really polluting the topic with meaningless bullshit. It’s unfortunate people are bringing these mindless circlejerks over from reddit.
LEO shouldn’t be some billionaire playground to make even more money. The Kessler syndrome is a very real threat to our future
So we just shouldn’t have high speed sattelite internet for people in rural areas or disaster areas because some people make money from it?
Or they should only be there if a government runs the sattelite? Because that wouldn’t change the effect they have on telescopes.
This is the kind of comment I was talking about.
The actual sane take. I swear musk is constantly living rent free in way too many peoples minds.
Honestly, what I took from this is we should have more telescopes that operate outside of the orbits of commercial satellites.
That’s what scientists have wanted anyway, even without the occasional satellite there is a lot of interference. I wouldn’t be surprised if they leveraged this to try to get more funding for more of them they wouldn’t get otherwise.
I agree, if it wasn’t Musk there wouldn’t be so much hate most probably, starlink is objectively good for all the people living in rural zones (in some cases just outside of big cities) where internet doesn’t arrive because other companies don’t want to spend the money for it.
There’s plenty of companies that do rural internet. They’re called WISPs (wireless ISPs). Usually small business owners willing to get more customers.
We would give free internet to more than a few farmers willing to let us mount on a silo or elevator. We put up a backhaul, access point, and give them a connection. Free internet for the land owner, we expand our territory, win/win. Then the neighbors just point a link at the AP and we charge them.
Only real requirement is line-of-sight. Towers can reach far. Existing structures usually work, otherwise they can sometimes erect a small tower.
I’ll do ya one better than that.
Because of existing telecom networks its nearly impossible for new fiber companies to do any work in large to medium cities in the US. Even Google couldn’t do it because Comcast/Spectrum/TW wouldn’t allow them to lay cable. In areas not already served by the big ISPs though there’s nearly no red tape. Sandy, Oregon (pop 12,000) laid a municipal fiber network for $30/month. This guy in Michigan said fuck it after he couldn’t get anything laid to his house and built his own ISP.
Based on the article the satellites are not staying 100% on their intended spectrum spec and are bleeding some unintended interfere noise. I hope the starlink cloud doesn’t interfere so much that it excludes possibility of some research. On earth, if you transmit even slightly out-of-spec radio signals, the government agencies will get mad and really really fast.
ELI5: Low earth orbit is becoming over crowed “FM radio station”, with regulation lacking who can broadcast and at what frequency.
I am biased here because I am benefiting heavily from each space-x satellite launch.
Without starlink I would not have been able to afford to buy a house. A weird statement I know, but in spite of being a dual-income, tertiary-educated household we were completely priced out of the city I grew up in including even the most far-flung suburbs.
We were also priced out of every other nearby city and their suburbs, and to be frank - never once in my life have I dreamed of holding a mortgage for almost 1 million dollars. That is indentured servitude for the remainder of my working life in my book and I just can’t do it.
With starlink, I am connected to the world. I rely on it to make phone calls, to carry out my work and to socialize. It is the sole pipeline through which we receive all media and entertainment and without it we would have nothing. I am happy living in the middle of nowhere, and I could easily afford a house here.
With that said, starlink already have 12,000 sats in low earth orbit, and plan to bring that number to over 40,000.
The technology works. In two years, I have had one major outage (for which I was financially compensated) but otherwise, not even so much as a slowdown.
If 12K satellites are interfering with the work of science towards common goals of humanity though - 40K will make this much worse. At some point, Space-x must atone for their sins here and do something to help the affected communities. Eg. Launch radio telescopes far above the reach of their low-earth-orbit satellite array and gift its use to the communities whom they have affected.
I don’t think it’s so easy to walk back what space-x have achieved here. Already they have partnered with several telecommunications companies around the world to bring genuine global cell coverage without the need for any towers. This is a massive leap forward for emergency communications, and continues to open possibilities where before there were none.
