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Comment by ideals | Hacker News Reader

What are going to be the cultural effects of having a constant stream of satellites wizzing around the night sky?

I've sat here for a few minutes thinking selfishly about never being able to experience Alaska wilderness on a clear night. Or late night stroll on a beach looking up, etc, etc forever about all kinds of personal moments that will never be the same.

However there's billions of people who have no idea what Starlink or Kuiper are that are going to find out the hard way when they no longer have that same night sky either.

I hadn't really thought about it much before because it was always framed as an astronomy problem, but it's really a whole Earth's peoples problem.

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To me, this is the same as building a city. Does it destroy the previous view? Yes. Does looking at a city's skyline inspire awe? Yes. For me replacing one type of awe for another is net neutral.

I grew up in Vancouver, BC, Canada. From downtown Vancouver you can see many mountains. When looking at the city skyline it is back-dropped with these mountain ranges. The combination impresses me even more than either the city or the mountain range.

Similarly, I look forward to seeing satellite constellations and behind them the stars. I would love for my kids to look up and be comforted knowing they can easily contact any other person on the planet. I want them to see the satellite constellations as a monument to human creation (10th wonder of the world), and be inspired to join that technological journey. I also want to point out the stars behind the satellites and have them be humbled by the magnitude that is space and bring with it hope and wonder.

While these satellites should try to be the least intrusive as possible, I'm not sure we need to think of it as a zero-sum game.

You can always choose to leave a city. You can't avoid polar orbits. A city warps the view in one place, while brightly lit polar orbiting satellites warp the view everywhere. That said, the Starlink sats are supposed to become invisible to the eye in their final orbits.

And thanks to LEO broadband, you can choose to leave the city and still have the high-speed internet that has proved to be necessary in this time of mandated shutdowns.

Follow on comment, what are indigenous tribes who aren't part of our connected world going to interpret this change as? I'm thinking about groups of people like the Sentinelese.

The indigenous tribes won't be able to see them so it has zero effect on them.

People appear to be downvoting my other comment so much that I can't even edit it so reposting again. Indigenous tribes won't have an issue with it as they don't have superhuman eyes to see 7th magnitude objects in the night sky. The satellites are not generally visible to the naked eye after changes SpaceX has made to the operations of the satellites and physical modifications to the satellites themselves.

https://www.spacex.com/updates/starlink-update-04-28-2020/

You can already see planes and the occasional satellite with the naked eye in even very isolated places. Personally, I find satellites to be more aesthetically pleasing because they don't blink like planes. As the number of visible sats increases, I think a bunch of silent criss-crossing points of light will actually be very beautiful, like a constant meteor shower. It's a matter of taste, of course, but it seems very different to me than near-city light pollution and noise pollution.

It has had a minimal impact on our dark skies in Colorado, but an impact nonetheless. In the past it was fun to spot satellites, and we'd usually go 10-15 minutes between seeing them, depending on the time. Now its rare to look up and not see something in motion.

Around the fire at our last camping trip a couple months back, we had a contest to see who could spot the most satellites concurrently, and the record got up to 3. They still aren't very bright (many stars are brighter), but with more Starlink launches, that count will surely increase.

Just by sheer, random, unplanned chance, we counted a string of 10 in a line while hiking in Utah, though only ~3 were visible concurrently. I'm really glad Starlink sats don't stay visible once they reach their final orbits, because part of the allure of the stars is that they are largely motionless.

Most of the time, they won't be visible. Satellites at general commercial orbits fly low enough they hang out in Earth's shadow when they're flying past. It's evening and early morning when they can be seen reflecting sunlight around the curve of the Earth.

Honestly, I think the idea of a sky alive with dozens of fireflies criss-crossing the twilight is kind of cool.

> I've sat here for a few minutes thinking selfishly about never being able to experience Alaska wilderness on a clear night. Or late night stroll on a beach looking up, etc, etc forever about all kinds of personal moments that will never be the same.

You can't see them on a clear night. They're not a problem for human observation, only telescopes.

But that's not true. I've watched the Starlink satellites go by at night with my own eyes. No telescope, just standing in my backyard, there's even websites which tell you the time and direction to look.

There’s a limited time (like a couple weeks) while they are boosting into their designated orbit where this is possible. And significantly less so for the latest generation with the new sunshade.

For the vast majority of the satellites in the constellation they are in fact not visible to the naked eye.

How long ago was that? I've not seen anyone saying they've seen them in several months. This is not a fixed situation and SpaceX has mitigated most issues with them. https://www.spacex.com/updates/starlink-update-04-28-2020/

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