Are they speaking for the hundreds of millions of people who may get internet access for the first time though satellite based internet?
There are other ways to get cheap internet, and these satellites serve low-population rural areas much better than they serve cities where most people live.
(Also: Musk does seem to care about the effect on astronomy, presumably because his drive is “prevent human extinction” and astronomy can help with that).
I understand that rural infrastructure projects occur. So what's the realistic timeline for, say, 99% coverage? My question is: How long should rural people have to wait, and how much should they pay for internet access, so that astronomers can have 5% of their observations unaffected by satellites?
These are the targets to beat: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/cost-of-mobile-data-worldwi...
I agree with this sentiment!
> There are other ways to get cheap internet, and these satellites serve low-population rural areas much better than they serve cities where most people live.
Ironically, people who live in cities will be much less affected by impingement on their night sky because they already deal with light pollution, whereas people in low-population rural areas have a much nicer night sky.
Astronomy is done more in rural and remote areas than in cities, for the same reasons.
Maybe the astronomers who complain about starlink can start a fund where they pay to build out rural internet access for the few billion people who don't have access right now.