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Comment by hnaccy | Hacker News Reader

Why?

My impression was that the low orbits used by Starlink and similar are the best place for this since it will all naturally deorbit on short timescales.

It's just space who cares if we clog it up some with more useful things.

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"clog" is relative here and space (including LEO) is huge

We once said the ocean is huge too.

space >>>> air >> ocean > land

It is worth considering the ocean is ~2d while air and space are 3d.

The ocean is most certainly 3D. The surface is 2D.

~2d was intended to imply effectively 2d for human activities, even airspace is probably closer to a layered 2d cake than true 3d like deeper space. LEO may be closer to an extension of airspace due to orbits and gravity. Still, due to the exponential growth with respect to the radius, there is significant room in LEO compared to anything terrestrial.

How does this differeniate space and the ocean in your mind? Humans cannot survive in either without some sort of vessel to provide a suitable environment.

My GGGP point was about "clogging" space with satellites, not about habitation. Space is so large that 100K's of satellites is still not clogged. I believe the SpaceX and AWS constellations are planned to get us pretty close to 100k iirc

Quadratic growth, not exponential growth.

I think it's cubic because they sum, polynomial either way, without considering other factors like potential for increased density the further out

Right; I meant the number of satellites supportable at any given altitude, not the number of satellites supportable up to a given altitude.

And there's nothing in space that supports life or the ecosystem.

Depends, could our increased use of satellite based sensing be used to support and improve the terrestrial situation?

Is the tradeoff worth it?

It is certain that your life today would not be the same without GPS, so in a sense it does support it.

I mean there's nothing in space that we will damage (unlike the ocean) by using it. I'm all for utilizing space.

Is there anyone claiming the ocean is full?

or "clogged"

https://www.nationalgeographic.org/encyclopedia/great-pacifi...

What do you mean?

Because you think that being able to read twitter between two ads is "more useful" than watching a pure night sky ????

Maybe you should think about what is really "useful" for you... and what other people find "useful"

You can't see starlink satellites with the naked eye once they are in their operational orbit. I'm sure many people find it useful to be able to attend school: https://www.pcmag.com/news/native-american-tribe-gets-early-...

So what is https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pgysWWwESfU&t=2s ?

And it's only with 700 satellites around the world right now...

This is shortly after launch while the satellites are still tumbling. Within a few days they align themselves so that their sunshields reduce their brightness and over the next few months they will raise them selves to their operational orbit.

I think people who have night sky views pure enough for satellites to become a nuisance is probably in the global minority. One might even call it a privileged pov, given that most rural inhabitants of this planet struggle for basic network connectivity needed for their livelihood and the education of their children. I respect your sentiment, though - ultimately, the question is not whether we should do it; it’s who’s gonna stop us.

Well... bad night sky is really a problem in cities... where there's already fiber. But in most rural area (at least in France), the night sky is still "pure enough"...

I understand basic network connectivity problem, but I'm not sure that satellites are the right answer wrt the impacts

"ultimately, the question is not whether we should do it; it’s who’s gonna stop us". You're right... and I can't anything else but law... coming a world agreement on how to manage space around the world

Not OP, but I can think of two reasons – too many LEO satellites can actually hinder views of the night sky[0] and additionally, the risk of kessler syndrome[1].

I'm in no way equipped to give a scientific risk assessment of either, so I'll defer to others to share if they feel it's major concern. But whether these are present issues or not, they're worth considering and thinking about as we move forward with more LEO deployments. The latter issue especially, given that once it occurs, it'll be extremely difficult (nigh impossible?) to rectify in short order.

[0] https://astrobites.org/2020/09/25/leosats/

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome

Amazing, we now have sky NIMBYs complaining about satellites hindering views.

just because you live in a place where you can't even see the night sky doesn't mean other people should be robbed of their view.

No one lives in a place where they can see starlink satellites with their naked eye once they are in operational orbit.

I'd be in favor of requiring all city lights to be turned off after 7pm so I could see the night sky better in my rural location. (/sorta s)

A small city 40 miles away hurts the view far more then the Starlink satellites do.

The night view is a potential issue, but Kessler syndrome is not. These satellites will decay on extremely short timescales. Until many of them start blowing up and launching debris in higher orbit, we don't need to worry too much about this.

Kessler Syndrome is not really an issue at lower LEO, the atmospheric drag quickly (in ~5 years) deorbits anything without functioning propulsion and navigation systems.

My mistake, I appreciate you correcting me.

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