Astronomers find growing number of Starlink satellite tracks
arstechnica.com
arstechnica.com
And yes, I know they link another ars article saying it only "minimizes" the issue, doesn't take it to zero.
Now a billionaire threatens the very stars for private gain. The most constant and egalitarian symbol of the vastness and beauty of our universe.
Kessler syndrome approaches in leaps and bounds, threatening to cut off space travel and satellites, for all of us, equally.
You do understand that at the altitude they are flying at even if they fucked everything in LEO (nearly impossible anyway) we'd be fine in a decade right?
Few things give me as much hope for the future of mankind then seeing the starlink constellation come online. Almost nothing is as clear of a milestone in human advancement. The fact that a dedicated billionaire can drive this gives me a great deal of faith we can handle all the climate issues.
Why would we be fine in a decade? - do you understand how reliant we are on being able to launch shit into space? Can you comprehend the political fallout of such an event, even in your optimistic scenario?
Who's regulating this - anyone? What accountability and oversight mechanisms are in place - maybe the FCC, who recently cited thousands of fake and stolen identities identical support to justify killing net neutrality?
A billionaire launching 12,000 satellites, which will necessitate 67,000 collision-adjustments a year is a "milestone in human achievement" because... ? Slightly cheaper phone and internet?
And this gives you "faith we can handle all the climate issues" - my jaw drops every time I read that. I think you are vastly overestimating billionaires power to fix anything, and wildly underestimating the scale of our "climate issues".
You speak as if you have confidence that you're right on this, but you give no indication that you understand the scope of these issues at all. Kessler and climate change aren't "things will work themselves out" kind of scenarios.
I’m not sure it’s terribly healthy for you to be worrying this much about things that you admit you don’t really understand?
A satellite doesn't just migrate to a higher orbit. Higher orbits require higher velocities, therefore require energy input.
For a collision to result in higher orbits it would have to be either with a rogue (not orbiting) object that caught up, or an object in a highly eliptical object that caught up.
Head on collisions transform kinetic energy into other forms including thermal, therefore reducing the velocities of both objects.
Because physics. Atmospheric drag at those altitudes causes orbits to decay to the point of deorbit in a matter of years.
> 67,000 collision-adjustments a year
Do you consider drivers making adjustments in steering to avoid collisions with other cars to be a problem? Because there are millions (billions?) of those happening daily, and we don’t think twice about it.
There will be the occasional unmaneuverable satellite, but I expect Starship (which SpaceX has said is essentially necessary for the success of Starlink) will be cheap enough within a decade to be the “tow truck” for broken down satellites.
"Can you comprehend the political fallout of such an event".
> Do you consider drivers making adjustments in steering to avoid collisions with other cars to be a problem?
NASA are concerned, as are MIT. And the Europeans Space Agency. Satellites only have so much fuel. Radar can only track so much. Tiny pieces of debris can cause a chain reaction.
So, unless you have a better analogy than fucking cars, consider me unconvinced.
The vast majority of those would not have resulted in a collision even without collision avoidance maneuvers. But we do have collision avoidance, and SpaceX knows when a satellite will run out of fuel and can deorbit.
In the 1960s, NASA also used private contractors for the moon mission. But nobody would have called JFK’s vision of a man on the moon by the end of the decade “private” gain.
The colonization of Mars by Elon Musk (not just him, think Columbus) is SpaceX's, Tesla's and TBC's goal.
Musk and whoever he takes along is human, so that alligns with humanity just fine.