Hacker News Reader

Comment by toomuchtodo | Hacker News Reader

Astronomy will need to catch up or pay for a resource they’ve been getting for free (unobstructed sky). Or start lifting more advanced platforms to orbits (whether that’s Earth or Lagrange points).

View on HN

> pay for a resource they’ve been getting for free (unobstructed sky)

Wow.

If someone doesn’t manage or govern it with economic incentives, no one does (see: most of the “public good” rainforest slashed and burned in South America and Asia that we desperately needed managed better, through private ownership and conservation management, to avert climate change).

You’re shocked at my statement, as if StarLink is entitled. Consider the alternative argument: why should astronomy slow global comms progress? If astronomy is more valuable than the ~$30 billion/year global comms market, shouldn’t someone bear that cost?

Because ultimately, arguments relying solely on economics are moot.

Technically, a human life has an economic value. And yes such value is used every day to decide health policies and insurance coverage. Would this mean that SpaceX killing N humans (where N=30B*number of years of operation planned for starlink/value of a human live) is ok? Absolutely not.

That's exactly the calculus a company like Tesla does before taking a mass consumer product like a car to market.

No it doesn't. If you know something will kill people, economic arguments are not considered sufficient. This was famously decided when it was revealed Ford elected not to recall the Pinto on the basis of paying compensation was cheaper then the fleet maintenance they had to do.

Not considered sufficient to avoid penalties in a court of law. But even that example can be reframed as a failure to calculate total risk in the cost / benefit analysis (i.e. they should have factored in the risk of a lawsuit and federal fine).

Hot take: Because Starlink is a shitty answer to ISPs being run by shitty people.

Well then, we should also have Elon pay rent for use of space...

I think it’s hard to argue it belongs to you if you can’t get there. If you can’t defend it or control it, you can’t stake a claim to it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraterrestrial_real_estate

This is actually one of the more interesting questions in space exploration in general. It has been ever since someone tried charging NASA for parking on the section of the moon they claim ownership of.

Defense would actually be quite easy. Just undesirable. There are working antisat weapons in the major powers' arsenals. However, they would produce nasty debris clouds.

And then there is also the vulnerability of the lauch site and control center...

And it is probably significantly cheaper to take down a sat than putting it up. So it would be a losing battle.

Not in general. A kinetic striker would require as much energy to reach the satellite as the satellite used to get there. Something fancier, like a targeted laser, to my knowledge doesn't exist with anything like the wattage needed to punch through atmo and still have effective kill on anything that far out (assuming you could solve the targeting problem to resolve the beam that tightly in the first place).

The satellite is in orbit. It requires significantly more energy to put something in orbit than merely reachin that altitude. Satellite killers are relatively small rockets that can use a small supersonic fighter jet as first stage, while it requires a much bigger rocket to put a satellite in space (it would depend on the orbit of course).

It is true that spacex can put a significant amount of satllites in orbit witha single launch though, so it probably evens it out.

That makes the relationship sound adversarial, when really there's mutual benefit to SpaceX and the international astronomy community. Astronomy can use cheap lifting capabilities.

And why does SpaceX get the privilege to rule the sky and the radio waves simply because they could stream Seinfeld somewhat cheaply?

It's a complicated question, but there are echoes of it in "Why does the US get the privilege of having their flag on the moon, just because they could get it there and nobody can take it back down?" or "Why do people have any right to the land they occupy, merely because they got there before other people did?"

First-mover advantage is real.

It’s not complicated. The answers to your questions are, “Because they can.” Possession, control, and force carry much more weight than some would like. It just makes those without power, authority, or any other stakeholder equity uncomfortable.

The US is not a super power because it asked politely and a committee granted it permission. Similarly, SpaceX will move forward because anyone with the authority to challenge them allows them to proceed.

What is the SpaceX constellation enabling that others aren't? Hint: theirs is not for consumers.

You're not wrong! The US DoD is already paying StarLink for proof of concept work for low latency, high bandwidth connectivity services.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com