I don't like putting more junk into LEO than we absolutely have to because it disrupts our space telescopes (which the EU has also invested over 1 billion euro in). I much rather have the funding go to improving land based internet infrastructure.
Specifically:
> It will secure the Union’s sovereignty and autonomy by guaranteeing fewer dependencies on third-country infrastructure, and the provision of secured telecommunications services for EU governments in critical scenarios where terrestrial networks are absent or disrupted, as observed, for instance, in the unfolding war in Ukraine.
Perhaps one side temporarily blinds a spy satellite with a laser[1], to prevent it from observing something sensitive. Then the other side reacts by blinding another satellite in the same way, but oops, the laser was a bit too powerful and it does permanent damage to the sensors. Then a single satellite is outright destroyed in retaliation. Etcetera.
[1] https://theconversation.com/russians-reportedly-building-a-s...
Putting sufficient material into all necessary orbits to seriously damage Starlink would be incredibly difficult.
And if its just shrapnel a single hit threw the solar panel might not destroy the sat either.
Further, space based telescopes seem to be the future of the discipline. While land based radio telescopes are less effected by satellites.
A bigger concern is Kepler syndrome, but that threat seems minimal in LEO.
Those that fall are planned to fall and to be replaced .. the issue is that are now thousands (and will be more) sats in LEO orbits polluting the night sky with both visible light and transmission spectra energy.
Doesn't matter much to those that live in cities and can't see the stars in any case .. but it's a blight to those that formally had clear skys, and to both visible and radio spectrum astronomers.
Night is altitude dependent. Satellites can be in sunlight while the ground below is pitch black. (That said, I find the complaints about visual pollution silly.)
Do you have any sense of what you're missing out on or how bright and distracting tens of thousands of LEO sats glinting in the sun are, or to what degree they mess up long exposure visible astronomy shots, or the noise they make for radio astronomy?
I have no issue believing that you find "complaints about visual pollution silly" .. I'm guessing that would be because it has zero impact on you.
Class 2. I can just appreciate the night sky with satellites in it. (They’re fun to watch.)
> to what degree they mess up long exposure visible astronomy shots, or the noise they make for radio astronomy
One is a luxury pass-time. For the other, there are workarounds.
I think of it more as science than as a luxury pass time but you're welcome to your opinion.
Streaking trains of LEO sats are a damn nuisance.
That part.
As you asked, you might enjoy:
https://www.amazon.com.au/What-This-Thing-Called-Science/dp/...
and then move onto Lakatos, Popper, Kuhn, Feyerabend, Musgrave, et al.
But for now, baby steps.
But I think you’ll find it’s a harmless question: What are you gathering evidence for exactly? What is the purpose of your observations?
There may be a niche for an open-source error-correcting model. These birds’ orbits are known and can be filtered from public databases. If you’re tracking meteors, you’re collecting enough data to project those orbits onto your field of vision and thus remove them as false positives.
For the luxury of taking beautiful photos, I unfortunately have nothing. (Though again, I find their paths pretty.) For the other, there are workarounds.
The hundreds of starlink satellites are totally invisible to me, except sometimes right after launch.
A starlink satellite train is amazing to watch and I'd love to see it a few more times.
EDIT The light pollution that really bothers me is the terrestrial light pollution. There's several cities within an hours drive of me, and they make such a large glow in the sky.
Some are switched off on over pass, many aren't.
I look forward to when all constellations are set to shut up when over head and the their surface an attitude are altered to minise reflection.
Total off is unreasonable, but a safety mode where chatter is reduced is doable. Particularly with LEO constellations. This could be done by e.g. the FAA, perhaps even solely through rulemaking.
I agree, but those satellites shouldn't have been there to begin with in my opinion. But it's too late now.
They don't. There are other satellite internet providers they just don't use LEO constallations.
If something is already on an orbit that decades within a decade or so, it still will.
So no, if satellite swarms are in orbits low enough to deorbit on their own within some years (e.g. 550km for Starlink), then a mass collision doesn't result in a Kessler syndrome as the resulting debris is effectively self-clearing. Doing the same at twice the height (e.g. 1100km original Starlink plan) would have that risk though.
Companies can start to behave like a government and reduce or eliminate competition, it's true. I don't think it's proportionally a big effect, but happy to read sources.
Of course - this project would probably not exist without Starlink, so credit where credit is due.
Personally I find it quite sad that we're destroying the night sky in the sense that before these projects people could look in the sky and know that all humans before them had more or less the same sight. Now there are just so many satellites swirling around in your sight. I find that quite sad.
I am certainly you've developed this view in November of 2022. Meanwhile any European stuck with DSL - which would be most of my family - would be ecstatic to get sensible bandwidth today.
Further, one can make use of a service or product today, and still be happy that there are better alternatives in the pipeline. I am certain that is how many Tesla owners view their vehicles, for example.
The quality of internet access is pretty variable most places in my experience, and there is more to it than just the notional bandwidth of the network drop you get. Some do it better than others but universally good quality internet for a country-sized region is still pretty atypical.
Well except for TikTok and the likes, I guess. But at some point we should realise that those "improvements" are destroying the planet.
That's not actually a thing.
> Now there are just so many satellites swirling around in your sight. I find that quite sad.
Except 99.9% of the time you can't see any of them. So for 99.9999% of people who don't do advanced space photography the night sky looks like it has always looked.
Then someone had the idea to reverse the cause effect relationship in a way to promote moving people to smaller towns and away from big cities. To the point of Italy selling houses for €1 to motivate people to move back from big cities. It doesn't work.
But in general that's not true. In particular, public resources such as electricity and water are installed for a specific planned capacity... the limit of how much resources to install is how much we can pay it back.
Public infrastructure is financed from taxes which is financed from jobs, this there's a cause effect relationship between infrastructure and productivity. That's the very meaning of self financed.