[HN Gopher] Astronomers push for global debate on giant satellit...
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Astronomers push for global debate on giant satellite swarms
Author : pseudolus
Score : 161 points
Date : 2021-07-20 14:40 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nature.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nature.com)
| durnygbur wrote:
| I can easily observe moving (Starlink?) satellites on the night
| sky in a city in Central Europe.
| [deleted]
| SeanFerree wrote:
| I agree! This is much needed
| publicola1990 wrote:
| I really wonder if this is a real issue or not or is some edge
| cases being hyped up and being projected as a grave crisis?
|
| For example while in earth shadow these satellites would be dark
| and not visible. Only in cases where observer on dark side earth
| surface while satellite is at elevation still able catch the sun,
| would these satellite be visible?
|
| Somewhere I read that there are two kinds of arguments or
| dialogue that can be made: scientific (or rational) and poetic.
| One must be very careful of those who insidiously offer a poetic
| argument in the guise of a scientific argument. I fear that's
| what might be happening with the arguments on this subject.
| rtkwe wrote:
| This is what a telescope sees when Starlink crosses it's view
| during an observation. They have a picture of what they look
| like in the article too btw...
|
| https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/spacexs-dark-sate...
| publicola1990 wrote:
| I don't deny that under certain conditions it can appear in
| images. But these conditions need to be weighed in while
| discussing the merits on this issue. And the article is
| silent on this.
| rtkwe wrote:
| From this image it looks like they'll be visible pretty
| high in the sky so it'll be an issue over a significant
| portion of the sky. If you've ever looked at the ISS that
| orbits below the Starlink constellation so it's more in the
| Earth's shadow than the Starlink constellation will be and
| it's visible all over the night sky.
| fallingknife wrote:
| If orbital launches are cheap enough to make these mega
| constellations economically viable, then we should be having the
| debate about moving commercial astronomy into space.
| MengerSponge wrote:
| Until we get a space elevator, our most sensitive optical
| telescopes will be terrestrial. Space is hard, and modern
| telescopes have _enormous_ optical elements.
|
| Look at these absolute units:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_optical_reflec...
| fallingknife wrote:
| From what I see there, the largest mirror is 30m. JWST has a
| 6.5m mirror. Assuming that 6.5m is the largest that can be
| launched at once (which is probably not true, and will be
| less so when Starship is operational), it would take 25
| launches to get a 30m diameter meter built. 25 launches from
| SpaceX costs $1.5 billion, which is in the budgetary realm of
| space telescopes. So I don't think it's as far fetched as you
| think.
| djkorchi wrote:
| The idea of assembling large space telescopes is very
| exciting, although there are obviously many engineering
| challenges to solve. What that doesn't yet address is
| large, ground based radio telescopes. Consider the square
| kilometer array, which will have one million square meters
| of observing surface. How many launches would it take to
| get something comparable into orbit? Oddly, the bandwidth
| requirements (about one terabyte/second) for the SKA might
| be the hardest thing to meet in space.
| rtkwe wrote:
| JWST is the cutting edge of space telescopes, hasn't
| actually been successfully deployed and now you're
| suggesting building and launching 25+ of them and then
| assembling them in orbit.. Right now the only things
| 'built' in space are all handled by astronauts on the ISS
| assembling things by hand which adds on the conservative
| end a staggering amount of cost to the budget. Add on to
| that that now you have a much harder job of building any
| new experiments to run on this monster space telescope
| which is a fairly common thing for ground observatories.
| We're many steps away from being able to move the best
| ground observatories into space and get equivalent data out
| of them.
| MengerSponge wrote:
| Yes, the famously operational JWST. The telescope that
| should be used as a benchmark for how to implement an
| orbital system on time, under budget, and if I may be so
| bold: _easily_. /s 1) You're talking about
| replacing existing capabilities. 2) It's easy to
| spend someone else's money.
|
| Those terrestrial telescopes are paid for, built, and
| running. Finding funding for them was really hard the first
| time around, and do you think constellation operators will
| spring for the replacement costs?
|
| I'm not saying it's technically impossible to replace all
| of our terrestrial telescopes because some people want to
| make a lot of money from the commons of our night sky, but
| $1.5 billion is just for the launches. It doesn't include
| design, fabrication, assembly, testing, or contingencies.
| sobellian wrote:
| The situation isn't quite so bad as requiring a space
| elevator, since we can apparently use interferometry to
| combine the power of several smaller telescopes. However as I
| understand it, we lack the capability to do this on
| satellites at present and there are unique challenges to
| address.
| murphyslab wrote:
| > we should be having the debate about moving commercial
| astronomy into space.
|
| What on earth is "commercial astronomy"? Nearly all astronomy
| is either publicly funded, research for public benefit, or
| hobbyist. Which part of that do you believe is "commercial" in
| any way?
| [deleted]
| sudhirj wrote:
| Giant satellite swarms will enable space based astronomy at an
| unprecedented scale. Instead of complaining that we're putting
| stuff in space why aren't astronomers trying to get more
| telescopes added into next launches? Is there any instrument of
| astronomy that benefits from being on the surface under the
| atmosphere instead of up in clear space?
| m4rtink wrote:
| There are some (that are also likely not affected by Starlink
| at all)! Some observe high energy particles as they produce
| visible ligh as they break in the atmosphere. Also some
| neutrino telescopes use a lot of water or ice to observe
| neutrino collision with the given dense yet transparent mass.
| inlikealamb wrote:
| Seems like a per-satellite tax could incentivize reducing the
| number of satellites where possible, and could help fund some of
| the research hindered by too-many satellites.
| CarelessExpert wrote:
| There will be no debate. This is just another commons, and we all
| know what happens to the commons when private industry is given a
| free pass to exploit them. It'll be just another tragedy.
| mberning wrote:
| The undersides are going to have to be painted in vantablack or
| something similar. Then I'm sure people will notice dark streaks
| on their photos. But it will at least be a bit better.
| rtkwe wrote:
| They've trialed a couple darker bottomed satellites but they
| still left streaks across the images. If you get too black the
| satellites will need bigger heat management fins which can also
| catch light along with the solar panels.
| 1053r wrote:
| Cheap space launch is the cause of, and the solution to, our
| light pollution issues.
|
| 50,000 satellites would be impossible to launch without the
| recent step change in the wholesale price of launch. And even 5%
| of that number of space based telescopes will decrease the
| contention for valuable instrument time enormously.
|
| Particularly if the next generation space based telescopes used
| tethers or precision formation flying for extremely large
| simulated aperture size, we'll start getting phenomenally amazing
| data. (Even some of the largest ground based telescopes will be
| possible to compete with in space using large formations of
| connected satellites.)
|
| So all of the hue and cry around Starlink is really just growing
| pains. It will hurt some of the science temporarily (particularly
| around sunrise and sunset), but in the long run, cheap launch is
| really what the field of astronomy needs to continue to have
| better and better instrumentation.
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| I'd love to see more emphasis on smaller, more numerous space
| telescopes. JWST will be great when it launches, and it's
| impossible to overstate how awesome Hubble has been, but space
| is big and time on these largest scopes will be very valuable.
|
| There's a ton of work being done on ordinary 1m and smaller
| telescopes. As you say, space has big advantages in
| atmospheric, temperature, sun, and weather factors that may
| allow a smaller orbiting telescope to do work that would
| require a larger terrestrial scope. I'd love to see enough
| scopes in space that (1) ordinary Astro 102 students could do a
| lab assignment to point a satellite-based telescope at an
| object and take an image and (2) researchers could have more
| frequent surveys of the sky to find transient objects.
| ErikVandeWater wrote:
| The decreasing wholesale price of launch should also make
| cleanup relatively easy compared to other areospace marvels.
|
| There are solutions from lasers (photon momentum), to nets that
| capture debris and then add a sail to it to increase friction
| from the atmosphere that is still in play in low earth orbit:
|
| (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwBRqHqmkCo)
| thayne wrote:
| That may be true for NASA and maybe the wealthiest and most
| connected universities and research centers. But that doesn't
| really help smaller universities or amateur astronomers.
|
| Not to mention that getting a telescope the size of the Keck
| telescopes into space probably won't be feasible for a long
| time (although without air pollution you would get similar
| quality with a slightly smaller telescope). And even ignoring
| the cost of launch space telescopes are likely more expensive
| due to needing to deal with the extremities of space like
| temperature regulation and dealing with cosmic rays (which
| besides interfering with the computers, also cause noise in the
| CCD cameras).
| BiteCode_dev wrote:
| We have to take in consideration that we are weighting space
| exploration against the comfort of a minority of hobiists. Do
| you want a thousand people to take pretty pics of the sky, or
| millions to have rural internet ? I agree we should make sure
| we don't destroy the night sky view for the naked eyes, but
| I'm ok with having to see a satellite through my telescope
| when I look at venus. Not a big deal, and not important to
| humanity.
| mncharity wrote:
| > getting a telescope the size of the Keck telescopes into
| space probably won't be feasible for a long time
|
| SpaceX is said to be discussing making a dedicated Starship
| into a telescope. To simplify the telescope, and periodically
| return for maintenance. Like the telescopes of NASA's
| Scientific Balloon Program.
|
| Except... Starship User Guide gives a payload envelope of 8 m
| diameter, and "100+" metric tons to LEO. Launch cost is TBD,
| but $30M would be failure (similar to Falcon 9 internal
| cost), and $2M is said to be an aspirational goal. Which is
| what a balloon flight costs, for a day or so, and couple of
| meters of mirror.
|
| So 8 m to Keck's 10 m. Half the area. But with balloon speed-
| tape (aerospace gaffers tape) pragmatics, not Webb.
| Although... how about a "simple" pivot-out-to-hex of _20+ m_
| diameter?
|
| Starship changes the constraint envelope by multiple orders
| of magnitude. And that's starting to be reflected in strawman
| project sketches. Which seem low visibility for now. But
| unless something goes seriously wrong, very won't be in not a
| long time. Monster submarine surfacing.
| wumpus wrote:
| > That may be true for NASA and maybe the wealthiest and most
| connected universities and research centers.
|
| I work at a well funded university, and it's not true for us,
| either. In fact I haven't met a single astronomer who is
| optimistic that somehow we'll magically get enough money to
| replace even a small fraction of the great telescopes we
| currently have on the ground.
| Robotbeat wrote:
| They were also pessimistic and dismissive of Starlink and
| SpaceX's launch capacity when first announced.
| wumpus wrote:
| "They"? Are astronomers a uniform community in which the
| entire profession is responsible for every stray comment
| someone makes?
| Robotbeat wrote:
| In this case, comments they DIDN'T make. The FCC had a
| public comment period before Starlink was approved for
| launch and no one pointed out the problem for ground
| optical astronomy.
| mcguire wrote:
| Are you sure? Is this the same FCC that ignored the fact
| that most of the comments against network neutrality were
| astroturfed?
| Robotbeat wrote:
| Yes, I'm sure. The astronomy community was silent.
| jfrankamp wrote:
| Agree, I think the smart move for SpaceX is to stay ahead of it
| by offering/working out/subsidizing assembly line style space
| telescope production and launch w/ benefits to impacted
| astronomy programs.
|
| I mean imagine if you just enabled a high quality ~cell phone
| camera in each direction on the existing starlink array etc. Or
| what if starlink specified a parasite satellite slot that they
| sold e.g. you can put up x mini sats embedded and facing space
| with network and power port. It lasts as long as the node
| lasts, put up a lot and don't complain.
| Bronze_Colossus wrote:
| That might be a possible future, but why is starlink required
| in that process? I can definitely see a future where we have
| space telescopes without giant satellite swarms obstructing the
| view from Earth.
| unchocked wrote:
| Because Starlink finances the development of cheap launch, a
| demand driver NASA can't replicate.
| dmead wrote:
| I'm build a dedicated observatory in my back yard? how the hell
| does this help me do better at astronomy?
| thesausageking wrote:
| How does the right to send things into orbit work today? Can
| anyone just launch whatever they want up?
| 0-_-0 wrote:
| In the US it has to be approved by the FCC
| dkarp wrote:
| Does the FCC co-ordinate with other FCC equivalent agencies
| around the world? Or is everyone just doing their own thing?
| JoeDaDude wrote:
| In general, the United Nations, by means of the
| International Telecommunications Union, coordinates orbital
| assignments between member nations [1]. In the US, the FCC
| mediates for the American satellites to the ITU, so the
| FCC, as a member of the ITU, approves satellite orbital
| assignments [2]. In addition, the FAA plays a role in
| approving satellite launches as a matter of air traffic and
| safety, etc. [3]. The FAA doesn't get involved once the
| satellite is in space though.
|
| As an example, one US company got in legal hot water by
| trying to skirt around the FCC in getting its satellites to
| orbit [4].
|
| [1]. https://www.itu.int/en/plenipotentiary/2014/newsroom/D
| ocumen...
|
| [2]. https://www.fcc.gov/general/international-bureau-
| satellite-d...
|
| [3].
| https://www.faa.gov/space/legislation_regulation_guidance/
|
| [4]. https://qz.com/1503575/swarm-technologies-settles-
| illegal-la...
| rtkwe wrote:
| The trick is that they don't just need the FCC for the
| orbit clearances the FCC also deals with spectrum
| management in the US and Starlink needs similar approval
| to have (legal) nodes in any country they want to have
| customers in.
| asaddhamani wrote:
| There are orbits assigned but then there are also spy
| satellites which I don't think are getting an assignment. Would
| like to know more about this.
| PeterisP wrote:
| Individuals and companies need permits from their respective
| governments, but the governments can launch (or permit their
| citizens/companies to launch) pretty much anything they want
| that does not disrupt other countries spacecraft and does not
| fall on their land. They can also deny permits for any
| arbitrary reasons, though multinational companies might seek
| another "flag nation" in that case.
| swayvil wrote:
| The usual lizards are looking to score a piece of Starlink.
|
| Mark my words, these astronomers are pure astroturf.
| robscallsign wrote:
| Living in "rural" Canada, 7 miles from a municipality of 160,000
| people, getting Starlink a few months ago has been an absolute
| quantum leap in terms of our connectivity.
|
| In the 7 years living here our LTE internet plans have literally
| gotten twice as expensive: with plans going from 100GB total
| bandwidth up/down for ~$165CAD (after tax) to 50GB total
| bandwidth up/down for the same price.
|
| During that time I've seen nothing but empty promises and talk by
| political parties and telecoms. Apparently they're spending
| millions and doing something, but I haven't seen any results
| other than taxes going up, and data plans shrinking.
|
| In that same time period Space-X and Starlink have literally
| redesigned space flight and created an entirely new telecom
| paradigm.
|
| I only hope Starlink starts to offer home phone service in
| addition to internet to further erode the market of incumbents
| here in Canada.
|
| As much as I wish everyone in the globe a beautiful unblemished
| view of the night sky, a couple of thoughts:
|
| (IANAA - I am not an astronomer)
|
| * Light pollution in cities already affects the majority of the
| global population.
|
| * There are already satellites in the night sky. It seems like a
| slippery slope of drawing a line when it becomes a problem.
|
| * Astronomy for cutting edge R&D/exploration already seem to be
| limited by terrestrial astronomy - islands in the pacific are
| denying access to culturally important mountain tops for new
| telescopes, atmospheric distortion, cloud cover, light pollution
| from cities
|
| * Isn't the prospect of cheaper commercial spaceflight
| potentially better for research astronomy? Let's get these
| telescope platforms into space!
|
| Anyway, as with everything, I suspect military control/government
| security considerations will end up being the overriding decision
| making factor governing these sorts of global mega-constellations
| rather than such noble and pure pursuits as preserving the nights
| sky.
| autocorr wrote:
| Light pollution from satellite swarms is an economic externality.
| Any company can dump sewage in the river (and maybe the sewage is
| necessary for progress!) but the private sector profits by
| consuming a shared resource.
|
| For the night sky and astronomy the externality is not so great
| in the grand scheme, but if unmitigated it does mean that there
| will be fewer discoveries per taxpayer dollar sent to the
| NSF/NASA. I'm a postdoc in astronomy and am all aboard Starlink-
| style networking. But it also seems fair to me that SpaceX should
| be the party that's responsible for treating that externality
| with light pollution, or else it's the same old "privatize the
| gains and socialize the cleanup." We've already effectively
| achieved this for radio astronomy by regulating protected bands
| in the spectrum for passive listening.
| robscallsign wrote:
| IANAA (I am not an astronomer), but I'm wondering - what are
| the implications for cheaper commercial spaceflights and
| satellite launches on research astronomy?
|
| Isn't terrestrial astronomy sort of limited by the Earth's
| rotation, atmospheric distortion, cloud cover, dust, light
| pollution, electromagnetic storms, electromagnetic noise, and
| limited availability of real-estate to place telescopes?
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| I don't know that the externality comparison and compensation
| is self evident.
|
| it is possible that the positive externalities of satellite
| swarms outweigh that of ground based astronomy, and they should
| be prioritized for the visual spectrum.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| Key word being "ground based." SpaceX's work will likely lead
| to _much_ wider access to space-based telescopes. That may
| turn out to be a more-than-fair tradeoff.
|
| The other thing about LEO constellations is that they're not
| permanent. A polluted river may not clean itself up
| automatically after a couple of years, but LEO will. We can
| change our minds about the utility of LEO Internet
| constellations at any time. There seems no real downside to
| deploying them and seeing if all stakeholders can find
| reasonable grounds for compromise.
| wolfram74 wrote:
| starlink is low enough that it will clean itself
| /relatively/ quickly, but even doubling the elevation get's
| into some very long lived debris[0].
|
| If you wanted to tax these mega constellations to mitigate
| the externality they're causing, directing 2 to 3% towards
| orbital telescope production/launch costs arguably would be
| the most immediate remedy.
|
| [0]https://twitter.com/torybruno/status/1407747990287171587
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Any profit of US constellations will already be taxed at
| the 21%0 federal corporate income tax rate, so that
| already seems to be a moot point.
| Beached wrote:
| that's assuming there are no deductions. I'm willing to
| bet every rocket explosion we see, is written off as r&d
| expenses and reducing their taxable revenue.
|
| in a company as fast paced as SpaceX, I doubt they pay
| much in taxes yet.
| [deleted]
| foerbert wrote:
| No, it's not. These are relatively new problems posed by
| specific companies. If we say part of their taxes go to
| solving this problem they caused, then what about all the
| other things their taxes were going to before?
|
| It's roughly similar to suggesting a tiered membership
| service should upgrade all customers to the highest tier
| without charging any more than they did last month.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| What debris? There won't be any debris unless they hit
| each other. The SVs themselves are designed to decay
| after a relatively short period of time.
|
| Agreed, though, I like the idea of taxing them to
| subsidize space telescope construction.
| [deleted]
| gego wrote:
| A treaty would be great... or a lot of school projects on how to
| down low orbit sats... that would make such a treaty more likely
| :P
| Mizza wrote:
| It's the pollution of space and desecration of the common
| heritage of all mankind.
|
| All of our pictures of space look like this now:
| https://twitter.com/StarlinkPollut1/status/12536666545606246...
|
| A bleak visual reminder of how billionaires exploit free
| externalities to keep us all in a prison.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| Where was the global debate on universal optic fiber?
|
| People in rural communities were looking for allies and groups
| like astronomers weren't there even though it was obviously in
| their interest to show up. (e.g. wireless communications period
| is an enemy of astronomy)
| xbar wrote:
| I do wish that was how policy was developed -- people see a
| risk to their interests and then they advocate to address the
| root cause in a way that helps all of society.
|
| While we're wishing for things, it would have been nice for
| climate change if oil companies had actually transitioned to
| being energy companies a few decades ago in the interest of all
| current and future generations.
|
| On topic: Musk behaves like Vanderbilt and Stanford in this way
| --he exploits vulnerabilities in the current system prior to
| regulators being able to address the concerns, leading to a de
| facto monopoly once market entry is prohibited.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| Groups that win at politics think about forming coalitions.
| Other groups lose.
| [deleted]
| notquitehuman wrote:
| In life, people who are unable to successfully form
| coalitions, partnerships, and alliances tend to be at a
| disadvantage to those who can.
| rhacker wrote:
| I don't think most astronomers knew that there would need to be
| 50K more satellites for remote internet to work. Maybe if
| someone had told them it's not just a few extra satellites?
| Robotbeat wrote:
| Astronomers were told how big Starlink would be. In fact, the
| FCC had a public comment period for Starlink before it was
| launched. Just no one in the astronomy community took
| Starlink seriously enough to say anything. (Granted, SpaceX
| also didn't know it would be a big impact to astronomy
| either, but at least SpaceX quickly altered the design of
| Starlink to mitigate brightness once the problem was
| apparent.)
| ghaff wrote:
| Just ten years ago, most people could arguably kinda/sorta get
| by without home access to good broadband Internet. OK, you
| couldn't stream Netflix or You Tube but those weren't really
| necessities. And a telephone landline was fine for real-time
| communications with people. You maybe had cellular data and
| some laggy expensive satellite, but you could make do if you
| cared enough about living somewhere rural.
|
| Increasingly that's not the case. I really couldn't have worked
| for any extended period from my dad's house in Maine with
| marginal (at best) cell service and flaky 1Mbps ADSL down.
|
| So getting broadband to rural locations is really not up for
| debate even if the method of doing so is.
| Sebb767 wrote:
| Well, to be fair, the technology and broadband speed promote
| out each other. If broadband would not have been available to
| some people, Netflix would've never started streaming.
| Similarly, once we get low-latency 10 GBit networking, new
| services will pop up that require these bandwidths.
|
| Which is to say that we should really start and get them
| _good_ speeds now, not something that is somewhat acceptable
| now.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| From an infrastructure standpoint the difference between
| fiber and everything else is that fiber is permanent.
|
| That is, if you run fiber optic along the power lines that
| will be good to support crazy high-speeds for the next 50+
| years -- with relatively small investments in the future to
| improve the transceivers at the ends.
|
| If you build fixed wireless the one thing that's certain is
| that the hardware will be obsolete in 5-10 years and have
| to be "ripped and replaced".
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| Not seeing a huge difference. The hardware lighting up
| the fiber will go through the same obsolescence curve,
| and the airwaves are even more permanent than that fiber
| will be.
| majormajor wrote:
| We had the netflix prototypes even in the dialup area, with
| things like RealVideo. Nobody had failed to anticipate it
| before broadband access increased.
|
| There really isn't ANYTHING I do with my current connection
| that wasn't predicted or prototyped in the 90s or earlier.
| So I'm skeptical of the claim that new uses will appear
| once we're all at 10GBit.
| sigstoat wrote:
| > Similarly, once we get low-latency 10 GBit networking,
| new services will pop up that require these bandwidths.
|
| like what? this is brought up, but i'm not aware of
| anything waiting in the wings.
|
| is there anything in use these days on large campuses
| (corporate, or academic) where the bandwidth does exist,
| that doesn't make sense on the broader internet?
|
| with most folks using wifi for everything at home, how are
| they even going to deliver 10Gbps to a device?
| notJim wrote:
| I have gigabit now, and barely need it. It's nice to have
| for the occasional large download, but otherwise it's
| unnecessary. Even the latest ultra hd Blu-ray spec tops out
| at 128mb/s, and Netflix won't give you more than 25. Can't
| imagine what 10 gig would give you.
| jerf wrote:
| Yeah, I was kinda thinking, the _last_ thing the astronomers
| want is a "global debate". Keep it inside their community and
| they might get action. Truly open it up to global debate and
| they're going to get completely and utterly routed on this
| matter. For everybody else, benefits clearly outweigh costs.
| Most of the people in the world already live in such light-
| polluted areas that they'll hardly notice the difference.
| PaulHoule wrote:
| Also it seems Elon Musk could help them get much better space
| telescopes than they have now.
| totalZero wrote:
| Fiber latency is way lower and doesn't require the sharing of
| ambient spectrum. Society loses little by curtailing for-profit
| retail ISP satellite deployment.
| ghaff wrote:
| So who is paying for and laying this fiber to remote rural
| locations?
| tayo42 wrote:
| Government should be, like a utility.
| sebzim4500 wrote:
| Wouldn't that end up costing $300k+ per house when you get
| to the really remote areas? I know some people that had to
| pay that amount to get a few houses connected up, and they
| weren't _that_ far from civilization. Hard to imagine there
| is political will to spend that much taxpayer money on such
| a small portion of the population when it looks like
| Starlink will provide decent internet for a tiny fraction
| of the cost.
| pradn wrote:
| But providing practically every service to a rural person
| is more expensive, but we do it anyway since we like to
| have a somewhat equal living standard for our rural
| citizens. Hell, the same goes for suburbs too. In many
| cities, poorer urban areas end up being net tax positive
| compared to suburbs because of the extensive amount of
| low-density infrastructure required outside the core.
| ghaff wrote:
| Yeah. If there were truly no other options, I'd certainly
| be in favor of a debate about bringing near-universal
| broadband to people, in the same manner as electricity
| and telephones.
|
| Of course, that only applies country by country and
| presumably leaves poorer countries SOL.
|
| However, given that we do seem to have a good option with
| the tradeoff that there will be more satellites in LEO,
| that seems to be a reasonable tradeoff. There are already
| a _lot_ of satellites in orbit, to say nothing of planes,
| and a lot of light pollution. So this idea that we 're
| besmirching the virgin night sky seems... overwrought.
| dweekly wrote:
| Fiber construction is $6,000/HHP for dense suburban deployment
| and much much higher for rural. So a meaningful chunk of the
| world's rural population may not be able to afford the NRE.
| Getting the world high speed Internet is going to require a
| battery of solutions. The real competition for LEO satcomms is
| a 5G cell site a few miles away with fiber backhaul.
| dkarp wrote:
| Not sure what you mean about ambient spectrum, but Starlink has
| better theoretical latency than fibre over large distances once
| they have inter-satellite laser links.
|
| There are also huge areas of the Earth's surface that are hard
| to or not worth running fibre to. E.g. very remote areas or
| moving bodies like ships, motor homes and aircraft.
|
| Those members of society wanting to live a more rural life will
| benefit directly. Those in countries without expensive
| infrastructure will also benefit.
| totalZero wrote:
| Fiber optics obviously use light so I didn't want to use the
| term 'spectrum' exclusively. The idea I want to communicate
| is that shared wireless channels have to be regulated by the
| FCC and similar groups.
|
| Starlink presently has real-world latency that is comparable
| to VDSL in the best of cases. It is superior to other
| satellite-based networks that operate at higher altitudes,
| but not to terrestrial fiber optics if you compare like for
| like (ie, a comparison of theoretical maxima).
|
| Obviously a ship would not be a good candidate for a fiber
| line. That said, many developing and/or rural communities
| will eventually get fiber anyway, so we as a society and as
| voters should push for a concerted effort to do it sooner
| rather than later. A good beachhead would be fiber to 5G base
| stations in remote areas. Latin America and Africa have
| surprisingly strong wireless data infrastructure. The
| existing market for distributing phones and wireless services
| (often a kiosk in a shopping center or a SIM card from a
| corner store) can also be used to distribute modems, no
| satellite dishes involved.
|
| That's not to say Starlink lacks utility, but it wouldn't be
| my first suggestion for rural or developing areas. (For what
| it's worth, I have lived in both.)
| the8472 wrote:
| For long distances satellite is in principle faster than fiber
| since the speed of light is significantly lower in the latter
| due to the high index of refraction.
|
| Fiber's advantage is bandwidth.
| totalZero wrote:
| The length of the hop is almost always far shorter with fiber
| though. With satellite, you have to go to space to receive
| Akamai-delivered content, game with other people in your
| neighborhood, or hit your ISP's DNS cache. Don't get so
| caught up in the physics that you forget to consider the
| implementation.
| m4rtink wrote:
| IMHO CDN nodes _on the satellites themselves_ are just
| matter of time.
| rtkwe wrote:
| For periods of time varying from two to ten decades
| maybe...
| phreeza wrote:
| Maybe I am a bit naive, but I don't understand how this is a big
| problem. Sure it would have been a problem in the past where long
| exposures were captured to film, where one satellite streak may
| overexpose the entire frame. But in the digital era, it will
| always be 100% known where the satellites were at a given point
| in time, so why can't software be used to exclude the affected
| frames and pixels for analysis? Surely that would not result in a
| very large amount of data being lost?
| petschge wrote:
| Because telescopes are so sensitive that the reflections of a
| bright satellite inside the optics bascially ruin all pixels in
| the frame. And there is so many satellite that all frames close
| to dusk/dawn are impacted. So you loose 1/3 of your observing
| time. And all of the time in which you are geometrically most
| likely to find object on orbits that intersect the Earth orbit.
| sebzim4500 wrote:
| That works when there are only a few thousand satellites, or
| when you have a very low FOV, but once you have 100k+
| satellites or you are doing a sky survey that becomes
| unfeasible.
|
| This interview goes really in depth on these issues.
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-0w0dM_e9a8
| Robotbeat wrote:
| It has to do with design of the vera Rubin telescope imager.
| Because it uses CCD instead of CMOS (which has become useful
| scientifically in the last few decades), it is susceptible to
| light bloom washing out a whole row of pixels or more. They
| could've adjusted for the possibility of satellite trails
| (which have been a thing since Sputnik) and taken into account
| the possibility that satellite constellations would increase
| over time (after all, there are several LEO constellations in
| orbit already for over a decade and mega constellations have
| been proposed since the 1980s and 1990s), but they chose not
| to. Which is fine, perhaps. Other mitigations are possible.
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| It's mostly solved for well-funded researchers with modern
| professional-grade telescopes and professional-grade analysis
| software. That's far from pervasive.
|
| "100% known" is overstating the situation, there's no easy-to-
| use API for an amateur to query location, date and time,
| alignment, frames, and pixels to get the location of
| satellites.
|
| Amateurs with basic software - or researchers who don't have
| the funding/equipment/software triad - just pointing a DSLR at
| the sky have to manually stack their images, for these users
| it's far easier to use a long exposure. The other problem is
| that sensor thermal and atmospheric noise vs. photon signal
| ratio is mitigated by long exposures in a way that's not the
| same as stacking short-exposure images, each with their own
| changing contribution to noise.
| PeterisP wrote:
| If we're talking about the tradeoffs between feasibility of
| astronomy as a whole versus the interests of (potential)
| users of satellite internet, that may be an interesting
| debate, but if it's a situation where professional astronomy
| at major scientific institutions would be mostly okay but
| just amateur astronomers would be shafted, then I'm afraid
| that the debate would be very one-sided. Telecommunications
| is arguably more important for societies than astronomy -
| that might be debated, but they're definitely more important
| than _amateur_ astronomy.
|
| Amateur astronomers are a sufficiently small niche with
| limited practical influence so that any society - no matter
| if democratic or authoritarian - would IMHO quickly decide
| that sacrificing the whole hobby of amateur astronomy as such
| would be a trivial cost to pay for even small practical gains
| in rural telecommunications (which affect far, far more
| people than amateur astronomers), otherwise it would be a
| tail wagging the dog. Amateur astronomers can have their
| voice heard - and taken into account if it's not too
| difficult (e.g. the changes in Starlink satellite coloring to
| reduce brightness is a good example) but they do not get veto
| rights. Their interests matter if there are no conflicts, but
| when multiple interests collide, the niche community will
| likely have to concede.
|
| You might convince societies that certain results of
| astronomy are essential and should not be traded away, but if
| these important results can be obtained even if "researchers
| who don't have the funding/equipment/software" are excluded,
| well, then excluding them is a plausible (and even likely)
| option and amateur astronomers will have to just take it and
| tolerate satellite streaks in their pictures.
| orbital-decay wrote:
| Perfect exclusion is impossible. Even if you know how much
| photons you're going to get from a satellite, physics dictates
| you will actually get a close, but not necessarily exact
| number; this uncertainty alone can be many times larger than
| the entire number of photons you get from a faint star,
| essentially destroying the observation. Many estimates are
| talking about 1/3 of the entire useful observational time being
| discarded at many critical instruments, for only one mega-
| constellation of the Starlink size.
|
| _> But in the digital era, it will always be 100% known where
| the satellites were at a given point in time_
|
| This has little to do with the digital era, and a lot more to
| do with the Cold War. (and it's far from 100%)
| CrazyStat wrote:
| > Many estimates are talking about 1/3 of the entire useful
| observational time being discarded at many critical
| instruments, for only one mega-constellation of the Starlink
| size.
|
| Can you provide a citation for one or more of these
| estimates? The only public estimate I've come across (not
| that I've been looking) was under 4% for Starlink and OneWeb
| [1].
|
| [1] https://spacenews.com/radio-telescope-faces-extremely-
| concer...
| simion314 wrote:
| Why I have the felling that all the SpaceX fanboys would have the
| exact opposite opinions if this would be Chinese satellites,
|
| - they could use fewer
|
| - I am from US why Chinese internet shoudl affect me
|
| China, Russia, India will also want their own constellations so I
| am waiting for when this happen and the hypocrisy starts.
| bpodgursky wrote:
| The SpaceX fanboy reaction would 100% be
|
| "This is impressive, but it's crazy that we've let China beat
| us in the race to universal broadband. The US needs to catch
| up!"
|
| The "SpaceX fanboy" mindset is about a belief that humanity has
| a future outside the earth. Not about jingoism. I've seen
| literally nobody rooting for the Chinese space station to fail,
| or the Chinese rovers to crash on Mars.
| cryptoz wrote:
| > United Nations forum next month might discuss whether humanity
| has a right to 'dark and quiet skies'.
|
| What about people who live in or near cities? Those skies haven't
| been dark or quiet for decades or more.
| swayvil wrote:
| Yes. Satellites are just a drop in the ocean compared to city
| light.
| dorchadas wrote:
| And perhaps that's something that needs to be discussed. I
| would absolutely love to see street lights be given a sort of
| 'shield' that reflects them downwards towards the ground. I'd
| also figure it could require them to use less energy if it
| reflected downward since so much of the light wouldn't be
| escaping. Could also go for red wavelengths like they do in
| some towns near where turtles hatch, so that they don't miss
| the moonlight needed to guide them to the water. I think
| there's _many_ ways we could make cities darker while still
| keeping it light at ground level for pedestrians.
|
| Granted, these are all just speculations on my part, but I feel
| there's a way somehow.
| asaddhamani wrote:
| This is really required. I do some amateur astrophotography in
| India where Starlink is not even operational yet and have already
| seen their satellites in my long exposures a couple times.
|
| Light pollution from the ground already ruins this wonderful
| hobby (and stargazing) for so many around the world, adding sky
| based pollution on top of that would be truly terrible.
|
| I recognise all the benefits these satellite constellations
| provide us, but at what cost?
| Retric wrote:
| LEO satellites like StarLink are in earths shadow most of the
| night. Which means you can avoid unlimited satellites, you just
| need to wait longer to start and end well before dawn.
| djkorchi wrote:
| Professional astronomers observe during the daytime too,
| using radio or microwave. Mega-constellations impinge on
| their ability to do science, especially for techniques like
| VLBI, where there's no obvious way to remove satellites from
| the data.
| Retric wrote:
| That applies to all satellites not simply large arrays.
| Large constellations all on the same frequencies aren't
| even close to 1:1 as bad as normal satellites.
| asaddhamani wrote:
| I have seen StarLink satellites with my naked eye many times
| and confirmed with the Dark Sky app, past midnight as well.
| Retric wrote:
| For astronomy, aim up. The closer to the horizon the longer
| their visible before and after sunset. The sky rotates at
| night and at different times of the year so the
| overwhelming majority of things are still observable
| without any satellites.
|
| Also, this is almost exclusively about about wide angel
| shots. You can still do ultra long exposure closeups of
| various things, at worse you might need to cover the
| shutter for a few seconds while a satellite moves into and
| out of the shot but even that's generally avoidable.
| petschge wrote:
| Things rotating up is only true for stuff that is close
| to the Eastern or Western horizon. And yes different
| times of the year help a lot, but there is plenty of
| objects that are only visible a bit over the horizon at
| the best of times. Source: have help a radio astronomer
| with source visibility calculations.
| Retric wrote:
| Sure, and Polaris is never visible from Australia etc.
| But, it's a much weaker argument to say these
| constellations limit observations by less than 10%.
|
| The reality is there is real impact, but no where near as
| bad as many generally portrayed. Imagine some senator
| canceling funding for new ground based telescopes because
| they heard these satellites would render them useless.
| petschge wrote:
| I have heard astronomers estimating it at up to 30% of
| the observing time for existing optical telescopes. Note
| that this is the instrument class that has t to 20 times
| as many proposals as they can actually observe.
| Retric wrote:
| Yep, and others say it's less than 1%. Neither of them
| are lying, but their talking about different kinds of
| observations.
|
| My assumption is scheduling should solve most of these
| issues in terms of large instruments.
| asaddhamani wrote:
| But what if something I want to click is near the
| horizon? For example trying to get a shot of the sky with
| mountains in the frame. Avoiding the parts where the
| satellites are is not a viable solution most of the
| times.
| ghaff wrote:
| Use Photoshop. Look I appreciate that astronomers,
| whether professional or hobbyists, may be inconvenienced
| by more satellites. But the odds that the
| public/governments will prioritize this over potentially
| much better rural broadband connectivity is approximately
| zero.
| Retric wrote:
| I agree it's an going to show up in nighttime
| photography. You need better timing, manually remove them
| from photos, or take extra shots etc.
|
| I am simply saying it's not a major impediment for
| amateur Astronomy as you can time things to capture a
| clean picture of most objects as long as you time them so
| their above the horizon.
|
| Also, if you want to aim for a mountain in long exposure
| all the stars are going to be smeared in the photo. If
| it's short exposure their going to look like just another
| star.
| zionic wrote:
| Starship is going to launch the equivalent of 1000 Hubble's
| with 10 years.
|
| You're thinking too small, this constellation is part of what
| enables you to someday go to space yourself and have your own
| observatory on the dark side of the moon etc.
| tayo42 wrote:
| > Starship is going to launch the equivalent of 1000 Hubble's
| with 10 years.
|
| Really? link or something?
| glenda wrote:
| Not everyone wants to go space, there is something nice about
| enjoying the stars from your own backyard or on a camping
| trip. I think this comes close to space pollution if they
| aren't able to provide a tangible benefit to people on earth.
| Robotbeat wrote:
| Starlink has virtually no impact on naked eye observation
| of the sky with sunshades.
| capitainenemo wrote:
| Surely inexpensive global high speed internet access is a
| tangible benefit. Even seems to offer a tangible benefit on
| that camping trip by increasing likelihood that you could
| contact someone in an emergency. Cell towers for hiker
| safety could be put in current dead zones. Not to mention
| as pointed out elsewhere, these aren't visible all the time
| so you could still enjoy the stars.
| 8note wrote:
| This is more expensive, slower internet access for most
| people, no?
|
| Satellites aren't going to beat cables
| ghaff wrote:
| I fully agree with respect to global high speed internet.
| However, I'd point out that if being able to contact
| someone in an emergency even in remote locations is
| someone's concern, that technology already exists in the
| form of personal locator beacons (which can also send and
| receive texts) using existing satellites.
| capitainenemo wrote:
| Sure. Absolutely existing geosync satellites exist, the
| iridium network exists. They are not very accessible
| tech, and neither would be used to stand up an emergency
| tower. And maybe it's just my impression, but it seems
| when I read stories of someone lost in the wilderness,
| it's often people who don't take precautions, are casual
| hikers. And for them, having a cellphone that functions,
| with maps, text and calls, could be lifesaving.
|
| As a personal note, a relative was doing coastal sailing
| (US east coast, bahamas), and while he wanted access to
| the iridium network for maps and emergency contact, he
| couldn't afford the data rates and device costs. He
| settled for downloaded maps and checking in by cellphone
| when possible. So, if he was lost out in the crossing to
| the bahamas, there would have been no contact. (yes, I
| realise that at present, Starlink is not yet offering
| ability to move around with your dish, so RV and boats
| are out of luck for now, apart from the possibility that
| more towers may spring up)
| ghaff wrote:
| Something like the Garmin inReach is pretty accessible
| these days. A few hundred dollars for the device and as
| low as about $12/month for the subscription. If I did a
| lot of solo stuff in out of the way areas, I'd probably
| have one.
|
| That said, I agree that casual hikers doing dumb things
| and getting lost definitely happens. But cell phone
| reception is hardly a panacea. Just because you can call
| 911 doesn't mean that someone is going to come get you if
| the conditions are bad. I actually have very mixed
| feeling with the newish assumption a lot of people have
| that their cell phone will always work and that, worst
| case, they can just call for help.
| slg wrote:
| >I think this comes close to space pollution if they aren't
| able to provide a tangible benefit to people on earth.
|
| But they are providing a tangible benefit to people on
| Earth. Maybe it doesn't benefit you personally or you think
| the costs outweigh those benefits so it is a net negative,
| but let's not pretend that there is zero benefit.
| jimkleiber wrote:
| > But they are providing a tangible benefit to people on
| Earth. Maybe it doesn't benefit you personally or you
| think the costs outweigh those benefits so it is a net
| negative, but let's not pretend that there is zero
| benefit.
|
| I don't know the answer and yet think the way we have
| normally answered such cost/benefit decisions is through
| government. Currently, we don't have a government where
| people make decisions based on what's best for the planet
| or at even just for all of humanity. Perhaps one could
| argue the UN or other global agreements, but I don't
| think, in their current forms, they have the ultimate
| say.
|
| Maybe we need an Earth Council? :-)
| yunohn wrote:
| Ah yes, the Temporarily Embarrassed Millionaire theory, but
| for astronomy. How amazing!
| cryptoz wrote:
| Not really...Either Starlink and the rest fail, and the
| skies clear up again shortly as failed projects get de-
| orbited. Or they succeed and there will be many established
| bases in space for research and telescopes.
|
| It's not like the funds from Starlink are going to be used
| to build casinos in the desert or something. Every $ earned
| is going back into building better space tech. So if it
| fails no problem for space views from Earth, and if it
| succeeds the result is cheap access to space views from
| space.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| > Every $ earned is going back into building better space
| tech.
|
| And to the shareholders. Who may choose to build casinos
| in the desert with that money.
|
| > ... and if it succeeds the result is cheap access to
| space views from space.
|
| It's more accurate to say it will give us access to space
| views from space at the highest cost that the market will
| bear. I assure you this cost will be well above what 95%
| of the world will be able to afford for quite some time.
| After all, much of the world can't even afford _regular_
| flight.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| > _And to the shareholders. Who may choose to build
| casinos in the desert with that money._
|
| There's a reason SpaceX isn't public, and it's precisely
| that. Starlink was, since its conception, and still is, a
| way to fund the R&D for opening access to Mars.
| 8note wrote:
| That's until musk needs to bail out his family by buying
| one of their failing businesses like with solar city
| yunohn wrote:
| Could you link to any sources that claim Starlink profits
| will be used to facilitate astronomy research? Quite an
| absurd assumption without proof tbh.
| m4rtink wrote:
| AFAIK SpaceX and Elon have said Starlink profits will
| fund their Mars exploration plans. That effectively
| hands-on astronomy! ;-)
|
| On a more serious note, if you get the infrastructure
| going to get a lot of hardware and people to Mars, then
| getting some more modern space observatories should be
| quite easy.
| cryptoz wrote:
| First, I never said that. Please read my comment again.
| Second, Starlink exists to fund the start of a permanent
| self-sustaining colony of _millions of people on Mars_. I
| 'm not sure how they would get to that without also doing
| and supporting a lot of astronomy research along the way.
| yunohn wrote:
| Your assumptions continue but to be unsupported by
| sources, but rather, blind fanboyism.
|
| Do you have proof that Starlink profits will go towards
| funding a Mars colony? Or that research into astronomical
| observations will be required for building a space
| colony? Or even if so, the overlap somehow helps
| astronomers on earth?
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| > _Do you have proof that Starlink profits will go
| towards funding a Mars colony?_
|
| Funding transportation to Mars to enable establishing the
| colony, and the question should be, do you have evidence
| this is not the case? Because this was what Musk/SpaceX
| have been saying since Starlink was barely an idea, and I
| haven't seen anyone prove they're lying.
| [deleted]
| yunohn wrote:
| > Who said I even support any of this anyway?
|
| You sure do sound like you support all of this;
| definitely don't sound unbiased (or unhinged).
|
| > This is well-established fact.
|
| That's completely untrue. A passing mention by Elon Musk,
| that Starlink could provide revenue for a Mars colony is
| not proof.
|
| Starlink is barely functional, not profitable, and does
| not show cash flow necessary to fund itself, let alone a
| Mars colony and astronomy research. Where are you getting
| a million people on Mars, doing astronomy research?
|
| > Is that a valid source to you?
|
| This is an incredibly bad faith discussion, fueled by
| someone with very little understanding of astronomy and
| economics. Of course you're not a source.
| 8note wrote:
| It also could easily be part of what ensures that nobody goes
| to space in the next 50+ years while kestler syndrome takes
| over
| sebzim4500 wrote:
| > but at what cost?
|
| A decent portion of exposures will have to be thrown out, and
| some types of sky surveys will only be possible from space.
| Robotbeat wrote:
| That isn't strictly true. There are changes to the design of
| the instrument that the makers could've incorporated that
| would be better at dealing with the effects of satellite
| trails which has been a thing since Sputnik. They chose not
| to implement that capability, even though satellite
| constellations and proposed mega constellations have been a
| thing since well before Vera Rubin was designed.
| spywaregorilla wrote:
| > at what cost?
|
| Amateur astrophotography?
| WhompingWindows wrote:
| What is a higher priority: astronomers' imaging or rural
| internet access?
| guerrilla wrote:
| That's a subjective question. Different people value
| different things and have differing preferences and
| priorities. At best, it depends on our goals. This is why
| these things need to be dealt with publicly and
| democratically.
| lpolovets wrote:
| How much light pollution will this actually create? I've read
| that SpaceX wants to launch 40k satellites that are 200 miles
| above earth. Each satellite is the size of a table. Could one see
| a table-sized satellite 200 miles away? Also given the surface
| area of the earth, the satellite density would be something like
| one every 50k square miles. How meaningful is that when it comes
| to light polution down at the surface of earth? How about for
| astronomers?
| cameronbrown wrote:
| > Could one see a table-sized satellite 200 miles away?
|
| We could see many of them with just eyesight when they first
| went up. Proper instruments are definitely going to pick that
| up.
| agloeregrets wrote:
| The issue is for long exposure capture needed for quality
| astronomy. In that context any reflection from the sun on a
| satellite can trash any shot in an instant. SpaceX has tried to
| reduce the reflectivity of the Starlink sats but they still are
| a factor. Supposedly it was actually really bad at first.
| lpolovets wrote:
| Thanks!
| aaron695 wrote:
| If the UN could do anything useful like bring 5G to the ultra
| poor than sure I'll listen then.
|
| But they can't even stop mass killings.
|
| Until then the rich can send their telescopes to space. It's not
| like everyone else gets to go to work and not see ads and other
| junk.
|
| And the primative-ness of watching space from a gravity well is
| depressing.
| dorchadas wrote:
| Reminds me of another interesting thread on the topic, from
| January: "What do we lose when we lose the stars?"[0] Sadly, it
| seems many on HN don't seem to feel anything towards the dark sky
| at night. I wonder if it's because most people grew up in an
| urban area? I'm from a rural area and always had a stunning view
| of the night sky and would truly miss it, and feel like something
| of inconceivable value is lost if it just becomes a flickering
| mass of satellites moving around. It's something I'd love future
| generations to be able to have, especially as we're already going
| to be depriving them of so much given our current tendencies.
|
| [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25969823
| verdverm wrote:
| This assumes satellite constellations will actually effect the
| night sky, which it does not appear to generally be the case.
| From what I understand, it's easier to remove satellites from
| images than airplanes
| dorchadas wrote:
| Starlink might not but I'm less optimistic about future ones.
| Who's to say that some company realizes they'll just get a
| (relatively) small fine if they skip the step that lowers
| visibility and decide it's worth the cost from a profit
| standpoint? It already happens now with pollution and I don't
| see companies changing.
|
| Not to mention that many satellites are already visible to
| the naked eye in dark areas.
| jaqalopes wrote:
| Go out on a clear night in any reasonably dark place and look
| up. The satellites are there, faint tiny moving stars. The
| human eye is not a camera. The human soul is not an SD card.
| verdverm wrote:
| It's a tradeoff which I am personally OK with.
| 8note wrote:
| im not sure how souls and SD cards come into this.
| fleddr wrote:
| I live in the Netherlands, which I think is the second worst
| place on the planet as it comes to light pollution.
|
| I've never seen a truly dark sky full of stars until the age of
| 35. Not just never seeing one, not even being aware that it
| exists at all.
|
| The eye-opening experience was in the Serengeti, Tanzania.
| Cruising the plains in a jeep some hours after sunset, to look
| for nocturnal animals.
|
| Until the driver made a stop. We were told to get out, as he
| prepared hot chocolate, it was really freezing. Once we all had
| our drink, he then proceeded to turn off the engine and the
| jeep's lights (it had massive search lights)
|
| Our group of 5 just stood there in complete awe, for minutes. A
| full 360 view with not a single light or object blocking a
| direct view at the darkest of skies, illuminated by millions
| and millions of stars. Endless.
|
| Never before in my life have I _experienced_ being part of the
| universe, I have only known it. Seeing it this directly,
| uncompromising, unpolluted was an absolute thrill. Further
| enriched with the howls of hyenas and nightly grunts of distant
| male lions.
|
| The directness of the experience, feeling so close to it all,
| makes everything fall into place. How ancient people used it
| for navigation, or to count time. It is satisfactory at a very
| primal level.
|
| A few years later in Colombia, we experienced it again. This
| time it was so clear that we could see the milky way with the
| naked eye.
|
| Surely lots of people do live in rural areas, and cannot
| imagine this revelation. But for those living in extreme light
| pollution, it's like taking off a veil after decades, if ever.
|
| Do I believe light pollution will be reduced so that we all can
| return to an "original" sky? No, quite the opposite. We'll have
| even more light pollution.
| ASalazarMX wrote:
| This could also be interpreted as resistance to change. Would
| the world be better if screens had not robbed people of the
| sensations of holding a physical book/magazine/newspaper? If
| electric or gas lighting had not filled the cities with light
| contamination? If planes and trains weren't making so much
| noise? If instant messaging hadn't replaced phone
| conversations?
|
| A sky with thousands of satellites is something the next
| generations will admire as much as we admire the actual one
| with less satellites and more planes.
| darepublic wrote:
| it's all subjective I suppose but your analogy is describing
| trading one human invention for another. but in this case we
| lose yet another connection to the natural world outside our
| own making -- and increase the inward facing, solipsistic
| bent of humanity.
| ASalazarMX wrote:
| Yet, looking forward, if Mars and the Moon get colonized, a
| swarm of satellites would be the quickest way to wire a
| whole planet, a whole network of planets. That would be the
| most looking outward humanity has done so far.
| dorchadas wrote:
| > This could also be interpreted as resistance to change.
| Would the world be better if screens had not robbed people of
| the sensations of holding a physical book/magazine/newspaper?
| If electric or gas lighting had not filled the cities with
| light contamination? If planes and trains weren't making so
| much noise? If instant messaging hadn't replaced phone
| conversations?
|
| I think these are all questions that could, and perhaps
| _should_ , be asked and pondered. For screens, it's not so
| much the sensation but what they have enabled (i.e. the
| dopamine hitting notifications), though there is evidence
| that our brain interprets text differently, less deeply, on a
| screen.
|
| Likewise, I do think light pollution is bad, and perhaps we
| would be better if we took steps to minimize light pollution.
|
| Same with noise pollution. I know I read that even low levels
| of noise pollution can heighten things like anxiety and drive
| a flight or fight response constantly. I for one look forward
| to electric vehicles in hopes that some of the noise
| pollution _does_ die down, and think it will be better for
| many even if they don 't realize it now.
|
| Likewise, there's also evidence that interacting via
| messaging is robbing us of empathy, because we never hear
| other people's voices and learn to interpret body language
| cues and cue in on how others are feeling.
|
| They're all questions that could, and should, be discussed
| and not just dismissed out of hand. In some respects, I truly
| think the Amish and the Luddites (who weren't necessarily
| against technology, but how it would be used and its long
| term cost-benefit ratio) took the correct approach to it.
|
| It's not resistance to change, though. It's interpreting
| whether the benefits of that change are worth the downsides
| that come with it.
| gizmondo wrote:
| Doing cost-benefit analysis of new technologies is a good
| idea. More often than not for the majority of people the
| answer is "obviously worth it", and that can give an
| impression of out-of-hand dismissal. I for one would take
| all the downsides you mentioned and then some over the
| Amish lifestyle and it's not even close.
| dorchadas wrote:
| I don't think the majority of people actually do a full
| cost-benefit analysis, in particularly with the way
| advertising works. And doubly so with screens and the way
| things have slowly changed to become more addicting. That
| also assumes that all the costs and benefits are well
| known.
|
| That said, I'm not sure I would take the Amish lifestyle
| as well, but it's definitely a close choice and I think
| they live more intentionally and that's something to be
| preserved. There are quite a few tradeoffs I would take
| though -- dropping text messaging for phone calls, for
| one; changing the way our cities are lighted to decrease
| light pollution; and _definitely_ decreasing noise
| pollution.
| jaqalopes wrote:
| The difference is, all your examples aren't unavoidable. I
| still own and can buy physical books. There are plenty of
| places without urban light pollution, as well as places
| without planes and trains. I can still make phone calls, and
| do so every day.
|
| There is only one night sky, and when you put satellites in
| it they go everywhere. The remotest-living luddite bookworm
| will still have to see the satellites overhead.
|
| The better analogy you should be making is (Assuming American
| here) do you really miss the old growth forests and wild
| areas that were leveled to make room for your cities and
| agriculture?" And the answer is, yes obviously! That's why we
| have national parks. But unlike with wildlife, the sky cannot
| be partially conserved. It's all or nothing unless all the
| satellites are geosynchronous. And I guarantee they won't be.
| greeneggs wrote:
| Planes are more intrusive. Bigger, brighter, and there are
| more of them. But they still don't ruin the night sky. At
| least for me, for naked-eye stargazing, satellites are a
| non-issue.
| Trias11 wrote:
| I'm all against Starlink polluting until i learned how shitty Cox
| is.
|
| As they say - "communist until you get rich, feminist until you
| get married."
|
| Etc...
| ashneo76 wrote:
| How many of those who are saying that this is for the greater
| good could be bothered to call up and fight for local fiber.
| Comcast and ATT spend billions in a town and stall that and that
| ad campaign gets you side tracked.
|
| Your inabilities at distinguishing the fake from truth shouldn't
| take away the night sky from all of us.
|
| Go fight the big companies instead of sitting here and talking.
| Start a local WISP.
|
| Stop waiting for the billionaires to save you.
|
| This is exactly how the rich stay rich. By dividing us and
| preying on the natural resources.
|
| Nobody goes and fights BSNL in India or the local telecoms in
| Philippines to establish better wireless links.
|
| This is basically moving the goalposts from one duopoly to
| another one soon.
|
| For those that haven't seen the sky, go take a trip to natural
| park. This is akin to saying, I don't use sea water because it is
| salty. Let some company mine to for oil, because it is for the
| "greater good"
|
| Nobody should be apologizing for a company. Companies as is cause
| as much harm as possible. We need better regulation to put checks
| in these comments and rich ass billionaires who think the world
| is their toy.
| dang wrote:
| Can you please make your points on HN without fulminating? This
| is in the site guidelines:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
|
| Flamewar rhetoric leads to less interesting discussion.
| supperburg wrote:
| I want a mesh of satellites around the earth. I'm a normal guy
| who's has wanted that before anyone was doing it. I don't think
| I was brain washed by the billionaire sat mesh propaganda,
| probably because it doesn't exist. Huh.
|
| I don't think your position is very strong. Your team isn't
| very large. The vast majority of people live in super light
| polluted areas, light pollution that takes a way bigger bite
| out of the night sky than sats ever will. And they don't seem
| to care. Plus you have the fact that this emerging space
| industry, the only part of which you seem to be able to
| appreciate is low earth orbit, will bring people closer to
| space than ever before. So who are you to deny space and
| astronomy enthusiasts of the future the opportunity to actually
| be in space and experience the stars from there?
|
| For real. Minimal changes to the night sky especially for
| people (majority) who aren't into space. Revolution in prices
| that cascades to space telescopes and _actual space tourism and
| multi planetary society._ have you lost your mind?
| foobiekr wrote:
| There's a big difference. We can (and should) fix light
| pollution incrementally. Once we are dependent on satellite
| arrays, we will never fix it.
| ORioN63 wrote:
| > I want a mesh of satellites around the earth.
|
| I assume your motivation is (alongside with a bunch of us),
| "bring people closer to space than ever before", but you have
| provided no evidence, that polluting low earth orbit with
| arguably redudant satellites is a good approach.
|
| You seem to imply that it will lead in "revolution in
| prices". I too, commend SpaceX for the landing boosters, but
| for now it doesn't reduce the price nowhere near enough to
| let humanity approach the space age. Starlink comparatively,
| IMO does nothing.
|
| Space tethers, anyone?
| dweekly wrote:
| The natural place for truly _undisrupted_ observation is going to
| be the far side of the Moon, so let 's put an observatory or two
| there and stop quibbling about LEO.
| Sebb767 wrote:
| This is fine for _really_ high budget astronomy, but anyone not
| having access to billions of funding will be out of luck. Not
| to speak of possible territorial conflicts on the moon, so
| billions might even not help you if you happen to be in the
| wrong country. Stargazers or hobby astronomers might as well
| just look at a desktop background ...
|
| That's not to say we should not build a observatory there -
| this is a good idea[0]. But it does not solve most of the
| issues these satellites pose.
|
| [0] Though a space station might solve a lot of similar issues
| without the need to land and take off.
| fallingknife wrote:
| Commercial use is going to be prioritized over hobbyists in
| any domain. Think about what the reaction would be if drone
| pilots wanted to add restrictions to airline routes so that
| they could use the airspace. I don't really see how this is
| any different.
| ghaff wrote:
| It's not just hobbyists. Earth-based observatories have to
| contend with light pollution in many locations. And while,
| in some cases, there have been mitigations, astronomers
| aren't going to get cities to turn off their lights every
| night in general.
| zionic wrote:
| Tourist flights to the moon will be $1-2 mil/person in 2035
| ($1000 or so in today's money). College students will get to
| visit and set up their own experiments as part of their
| billion dollar tuition.
| tsjq wrote:
| what's your inflation % ?
| dsign wrote:
| This was exactly what I was thinking. Space is big and we don't
| use it as much as we should. Let's fix that instead of taking
| the Internet from people who need it.
| deadalus wrote:
| As if millions of people around the world are benefiting from
| low cost satellite internet.
|
| Space should be open for all - nobody should be able to
| restrict vision. I won't be surprised if we have to use
| weaponry to remove these satellites in the future. Space
| boundaries will be a hot topic in the future.
| dsign wrote:
| > As if millions of people around the world are benefiting
| from low cost satellite internet.
|
| Do you have any numbers? I don't, but in my country of 11
| million people, the dictatorship got scared last week of
| popular protests and cut out the Internet for everybody.
| How I wish they didn't have that power.
| fallingknife wrote:
| Weaponry doesn't remove a satellite. It turns one satellite
| into 1000.
| deadalus wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_weapon
| louis___ wrote:
| So, let's allow to launch a few more satellites in order to set
| our observatories on the far side of the moon ?!
|
| How much ? Surely having only 1 or 2 would require a planetary
| consensus, so let's say every country can have one or 2 ?
|
| Or simpler, let's everyone who has enough money to do it ! Yay
| !
|
| Coming In : "how we came to pollute the far side of the moon"
| UnFleshedOne wrote:
| Nobody lives there, so I fail to see the problem even if the
| whole surface of the moon gets covered with various
| constructions Coruscant style...
| jerf wrote:
| Light pollution would be easier to deal with if there was no
| atmosphere smearing it all around.
|
| (Potential repliers please ponder the difference between
| "easier to deal with" and "trivial".)
| timbre1234 wrote:
| Astronomy is nice to have, but it absolutely pales in comparison
| to the things satellite swarms can bring us on earth. The cost is
| well worth it, and if astronomy is affected the solution will
| have to be more reliance on space-based observation.
| AQuantized wrote:
| Strongly disagree with this. If Earth based infrastructure was
| better there wouldn't be as much need for satellite based
| services at this scale. Depriving people of the opportunity to
| look at the natural sky, without it being besmirched by human
| objects, is a terrible downside.
|
| It's bad enough that many people in light polluted cities can
| barely see major stars, never mind Andromeda or subtler
| constellations.
| 8note wrote:
| Afaik, Starlink hasn't shown itself to be profitable yet, so
| there may not be any need
| Robotbeat wrote:
| This just isn't accurate. Starlink is only barely visible
| under certain conditions near sunrise and sunset and most of
| the time cannot be seen by the naked eye, due to SpaceX
| inventing and deploying sunshade technology to reduce
| satellite visibility to the visible limit.
|
| I think there is a lot of miss information out there about
| star link. Yes it does affect large survey telescopes but for
| the most part it isn't a huge impact on the actual naked eye
| visible night sky. ISS & other space stations are FAR easier
| to see, outshining out even the brightest stars vs Starlink
| which can only be seen a small portion of the time with the
| naked eye (once in operational orbit). It has absolutely no
| impact on reducing visibility of Andromeda or subtle
| constellations.
| AQuantized wrote:
| This isn't just Starlink. Of course, hopefully Starlink's
| satellites will adhere more closely to the agreed threshold
| in the future, but that isn't set in stone, and once this
| becomes a profitable industry it seems unlikely corners
| won't be cut and lawmakers lobbied like in any other
| sector.
|
| Of course, even meeting the agreed threshold currently
| still renders them visible in telescopes, and that applies
| to amateurs as well.
| Robotbeat wrote:
| I think it be good idea to have international rules and
| regulations with common sense limits to continue and
| improve upon what SpaceX has done voluntarily.
|
| I don't think it should be surprising or considered bad
| that you can see objects in space with telescopes. I
| don't think we should stop sending stuff into space just
| because it's detectable with sensitive instruments (which
| doesn't mean we shouldn't try to find ways to make
| scientific observations coexist). But I can definitely
| see an argument for limiting naked eye visibility.
| asaddhamani wrote:
| Which is much more expensive and risky, just look at the
| Hubble($4.7B) failure recently, or the Kepler ($600M) failures
| before that. How many years (decades?) has James Webb($8.8B)
| telescope been in development? Ground based can't be easily
| replaced by space based and will leave lots of people and
| nations out of astronomy, which will truly be a terrible loss.
| [deleted]
| m4rtink wrote:
| That traditional space telescope cost is heavily driven by
| how expensive space launch used to be, which is already
| changing now.
|
| Also with the upcoming RLVs in space repair or retrieval and
| redeployment might also become an option, this time much more
| affordable than with the Shuttle.
| NikolaeVarius wrote:
| James Webb is doing observation literally impossible to do
| from ground
| asaddhamani wrote:
| My point is that not every use case is viable for space
| telescopes due to cost, next to impossible repairs,
| required technology, etc. They can't replace ground based
| observations completely.
| Robotbeat wrote:
| Starship (which will get its bread and butter from
| Starlink) actually WOULD enable much cheaper space
| telescopes, cheaper repairs and maintain by astronauts.
| Starlink satellites themselves are very inexpensive and
| show there's no fundamental reason why space hardware
| MUST be extremely expensive compared to ground hardware.
|
| Space telescopes could actually be cheaper than ground
| telescopes if SpaceX succeeds in reducing cost of human
| spaceflight to their goals. Space telescopes don't need
| massive structures to keep the mirror from deforming
| under gravity, they don't need advanced adaptive optics
| to adjust for seeing, they can point almost anywhere in
| the sky and can observe objects day and night without
| weather or seasonal concerns.
| 0-_-0 wrote:
| I'll just point out that not all ground-based astronomy is
| affected. Satellites are only visible when the sky is dark
| but the satellite is not in Earth's shadow, so only
| observations at dusk and dawn are affected.
| djkorchi wrote:
| Are you sure this is true? You can frequently see
| satellites in the dead of night. Further, they show up
| quite plainly in non-visible wavelengths like radio or
| infrared even during the day.
| Robotbeat wrote:
| When can you see satellites in the Earth shadow with
| visible light?
| djkorchi wrote:
| The parent post said that only observations at dusk and
| dawn are affected. I'm pointing out that, even at
| astronomical midnight, large fractions of the sky aren't
| in earth's shadow. For other wavelengths the shadow is
| irrelevant, since satellites contaminate data even
| without the sun's direct illumination.
| Robotbeat wrote:
| Well sure, at high latitudes and during certain seasons
| that may be true for higher altitude LEO satellites
| (Starlink is fairly low), but if we're talking corner
| cases, sometimes the _surface of the Earth_ isn't in
| Earth's shadow at astronomical midnight (land of the
| midnight sun).
|
| Corner cases don't really count as "frequent," however.
| 0-_-0 wrote:
| This of course only applies to visible light, they will
| be visible in infrared no matter what.
| BobbyJo wrote:
| > The cost is well worth it.
|
| That's speculative and subjective, hence the debate.
|
| I actually disagree to some degree as well, as there are more
| costs associated with these constellations than just missed
| photo opportunities for people's hobbies. Knowing the effect a
| single cheap kitchen microwave can have, I worry about what
| these constellations may mess up with regard to physics
| research. Important discoveries can be delayed to the detriment
| of everyone, and in exchange we just get cheaper faster
| internet out in the boonies for a small portion of the
| population.
|
| Astronomy may or may not be humanities savior on a larger
| timescale. I think it's worth debating if we shouldn't just
| accept poor connectivity in the middle of nowhere as a feature
| as opposed to a bug.
| BbzzbB wrote:
| Nearly half of humanity doesn't have Internet access, not a
| few rednecks in the boonies. That's billions of people, the
| world is much larger then the US.
| ghaff wrote:
| And it's not even just some rednecks in the boonies in the
| US either. My dad's house in Maine is just 10 minutes from
| a fairly sizable city (by Maine standards). He can get
| maybe 1Mbps down and the houses further down the road can't
| get wired Internet at all. Cell phone reception is also
| almost non-existent.
| BobbyJo wrote:
| Being ten minutes from a city, it seems a single cell
| tower would solve the issue much better than a satellite
| no? In that instance, satellites feel like a work around
| for poor development practices (whether that be city or
| state regulation, or provider investment) than a
| reasonable solution.
| m4rtink wrote:
| Maybe there is not enough houses in that area to spread
| the cost of that one wireless tech hosting tower?
|
| A single satellite from a swarm will cover much bigger
| area at any one time, not to mention the coverage area
| _moves_ as it orbits.
|
| Much better argument for paying infrastructure costs if
| coverage area is effectively "humankind".
| BobbyJo wrote:
| Maybe, there aren't enough houses to justify the cost,
| sure. I figured that probably wasn't the case given the
| proximity to a city.
|
| I'm not arguing that a satellite solves the problem of
| remote data access generally, they definitely do. My
| original question was whether or not that _specific_ use
| case is worth the cost to science.
|
| They don't solve access generally, so the other threads
| which reference large swaths of the planet not having
| internet yet feel beside the point to me. The vast
| majority of humanity lives in densely populated areas,
| and therefore these satellite based systems still won't
| solve that problem.
| BobbyJo wrote:
| Yes, but these constellations aren't designed to serve
| 'everyone without internet', they are designed to serve
| areas with low population density where physical
| connections are financially infeasible, hence my usage of
| 'boonies'.
| smaddox wrote:
| It's perhaps worth noting that Starlink is about much more
| than network access in remote areas. The laser links between
| satalites should enable a considerable improvement in
| intercontinental transmission, both bandwidth and latency.
| cycomanic wrote:
| That's simply not true. The throughput provided by starlink
| absolutely pales in comparison to an optical fibre link.
| AFAIK current plans might look at 100 Gbps transponders for
| the interlinks (I think it might even just be 10 Gbps).
| Even if they go to future 800 G or 1T transponders (which
| is questionable if it's possible, especially because most
| of the constellation needs this, so a whole exchange of
| satellites would be required), that's still much less than
| 70 Tbps that can be transmitted through a single fibre over
| submarine distances, and a submarine cable typically
| contains tens to hundreds of fibres.
|
| So in short starlink will have no influence on available
| crosscontinental bandwidth.
|
| Source: I research on optical fibre and space communication
| BobbyJo wrote:
| If you're using the satellites purely as continental links,
| then the overall number needed would be much much lower, as
| you could plan service areas as opposed to trying to
| services the entire surface of the planet.
| guerrilla wrote:
| > he cost is well worth it
|
| to you. Not everyone shares your values and has your priorities
| and preferences.
| cycomanic wrote:
| I find the naivity inherent in believing the claims of starlink
| being almost humanitarian by bringing cheap Internet to the
| unconnected masses fascinating. Satellite constellation are
| still extremely expensive way of deploying Internet even if
| (and that's a big if) spacex brings costs down by an order of
| magnitude.
|
| The users of these constellations will not be the unconnected
| masses, it will be users with big pockets, military,
| intelligence, and large enterprise who operate in remote areas
| (i.e. mining and oil). Also who are the early adopters who
| bring down launch costs of constellations for everyone by
| paying a premium? I doubt starlink has the deep pockets needed.
| No it will be intelligence services who'd love satelitte
| constellations capable of near real time surveillance from LEO
| orbit.
|
| Somehow nobody talks about this in their fawning over Musks
| latest tweets. And let's not even talk about the environmental
| impact of largely increases rocket launches.
| AlexandrB wrote:
| This is another case where something freely available to all
| (the night sky) is being affected by the externalities of a
| for-profit business (satellite internet). In that sense,
| comparing these things directly is a bit "apples and oranges".
| And it's important to note that the profits of said business
| will accrue to a small number of US companies, while the costs
| will be borne (in a small way) by basically every human on
| earth. Did Musk ask them all if they're ok with the tradeoff?
| Are they all going to be compensated? Probably not, right?
| LatteLazy wrote:
| We just need a small tax on satellites (linked to their
| reflectivity etc) ring fenced to pay for more space based
| telescopes...
| rtkwe wrote:
| The largest ground based mirrors are pushing 30m now while the
| largest space mirror we've built (but not launched) is the JWST
| at 6.5 which requires a complicated folding mechanism to
| achieve because it has to fit in a faring. So to make one 30m
| telescope in space we'd need around 20 JWST sized telescopes
| plus the cost of launching and assembling them in space which
| currently means using people. That's far from a small tax.
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