Comment by serf | Hacker News Reader

Comment by serf | Hacker News Reader

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>Most things in life are like this. Wind turbines are a great way to supply green energy, but building them takes a lot of energy.

Reminder : we only have one sky.

Things offer both positives and negatives, but

a) generally those things are decided by local powers and authorities that can be influenced by local populations -- not corporations from specific countries that may or may not be far away and without local permission

(those decisions that are made by foreign corporations that modify local attributes is generally frowned upon -- very few like the oil rigs scattered around the ocean, they tolerate them due to the profits associated)

b) very few of these decisions create global impacts, the ones that do (say, environmental issues) have many confounding factors and influence groups working with them, representing many different people and locales.

In just so happens that in the case of 'the sky' we're all 'locals' -- but very few people, with respect to 'the world', had a say in the matter.

Starlink does create some real increased difficulties for Earth-based astronomical observations.

But by playing its part in SpaceX's goal of driving down the cost of access to space, it also creates real increased opportunities for space-based astronomical observations.

This is an excellent summary of a lot of the kickback and risk for Elon.

I think if Elon had gone to, say, the UN and tried to start a discussion about this stuff more generally to establish some ground rules for SpaceX and others, it would have been much better received. It would've given a forum to those affected - communities around the world and astronomers and other satellite operators - where none exists. Some discussions around things like target albedos, orbital parameters, and constellation sizes could've been had before a single bird went up. This would've also made life easier for other operators now working out how to dodge the Starlink constellation on the regular.

But Elon is not that sort of person, which is the great tragedy in all this. Maybe you have to be a screw-the-rest, I'm-going-to-do-it kind of person to succeed as he has (or just inherit a huge pile of cash, or maybe both). But it strikes me that as a strategy he's opted to go it alone until regulators start to step in, which is unlikely in this industry for a while given the global nature.

I think it will take something akin to the blocking of satellite uplinks (that brought the UN into international satellite operations somewhat, and effectively designated such jamming as an offensive act of war) to actually bring regulatory scrutiny to bear. The loss of ground-based astronomy isn't a big enough issue - yet - to justify the engagement. But if these constellations get bigger and bigger and the impact gets larger and larger, then that impact will add up. All we've had so far is the "early warnings" from those paying attention to the early deployments.

I think Starlink and its competitors are a very important short-term part of the global internet access discussion, but it's not a long-term fix; constant satellite launches, maintenance, and deorbiting will not be viable cost-wise over the 20-40 years most fibre installations expect to be around for at a minimum. Fibre will eventually reach everywhere - wireline operators across the globe are seeing Starlink as a short-term thing which may paradoxically make it much harder to justify rolling out a proper fix to the hardest to reach, and which may cause governments to deploy subsidy to offset the risk. In the USA it's a bit mad and distorted because of the insane market that regulators have allowed, but in the EU/UK and most of Asia, govts are making sure full fibre gets to everyone (slowly, in many cases, but it is speeding up rapidly these days).

Just like nuclear, this is a perfectly good stop-gap. But the right answer is renewables - everyone knows it - it's just a matter of timing.

So many ISPs have gone bankrupt trying to make fibre work. Not even Google with all its massive resources could make it economically viable in mid-size cities.

> But Elon is not that sort of person, which is the great tragedy in all this.

If he was, SpaceX and Starlink wouldn't exist. Have you ever tried to handle anything at UN level? That a 10-20 year discussion and even then must likely nothing will be agree on.

The Outer-Space treaty has been argued about for 50+ years and not a single revision has been made.

SpaceX is fully in line with the current interventional space regulation. Nothing SpaceX is doing is qualitatively different then what anybody else does. They just do it more.

In fact, in many way SpaceX fast adjustment and dialogue with astronomy community is forward thinking. The reality is, its not UN and treaties that are gone solve these problems, but the actual stack holders working together.

SpaceX is working with ESA on LEO consolation safety (as ESA has multiple sats in the same region) and work with astronomers to find good compromises and give them the data they need to plan operations.

> constant satellite launches, maintenance, and deorbiting will not be viable cost-wise over the 20-40 years

The cost of accessing to space will drop 10x at least in the next 10 years and likely go down more after that.

> Just like nuclear, this is a perfectly good stop-gap. But the right answer is renewables - everyone knows it - it's just a matter of timing.

Actually nuclear would have been the right answer and the only reason 'renwables' (nuclear is practically renewable as well) are considered is because terrible global handling of nuclear has made it unpractical.

In 100-200 years people will be using nuclear, not renewables, they are the stop-gap for now.

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