The Gilded Age had nothing on this. Two billionaires are battling over ownership of communication in the sky.
Is the winner "Prince of The Air"?
Amazon Seeks Permission to Launch 3k Internet Satellites
11–20 of 252 posts
Re: Amazon Seeks Permission to Launch 3k Internet Satellites
#12Welcome to the dystopian future where no human anywhere on Earth can look up and see an authentic sky, as their ancestors did. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/01/science/starlink-spacex-a... And thanks to SpaceX (and now Amazon), astronomers will now have to do their observations from space. If only there was a way to get telescopes up there. Oh, wait... SpaceX just happens to have a way to solve the problem it creat…
What's particulary dystopic about it? Preserving nature is valuable because we rely on the ecosystem, you can't really make that argument for the dead emptiness that is space.
Ubiquitous space access even is a common theme in scifi utopias!
Re: Amazon Seeks Permission to Launch 3k Internet Satellites
#13Welcome to the dystopian future where no human anywhere on Earth can look up and see an authentic sky, as their ancestors did. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/01/science/starlink-spacex-a... And thanks to SpaceX (and now Amazon), astronomers will now have to do their observations from space. If only there was a way to get telescopes up there. Oh, wait... SpaceX just happens to have a way to solve the problem it creat…
A world where two billionaires can take the stars from humanity. It's like a fairytale, and yet it can happen.
Re: Amazon Seeks Permission to Launch 3k Internet Satellites
#14Welcome to the dystopian future where no human anywhere on Earth can look up and see an authentic sky, as their ancestors did. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/01/science/starlink-spacex-a... And thanks to SpaceX (and now Amazon), astronomers will now have to do their observations from space. If only there was a way to get telescopes up there. Oh, wait... SpaceX just happens to have a way to solve the problem it creat…
Thankfully (/s), due to the light pollution given off by the city I live near, I can't see them anyway.
Re: Amazon Seeks Permission to Launch 3k Internet Satellites
#15Welcome to the dystopian future where no human anywhere on Earth can look up and see an authentic sky, as their ancestors did. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/01/science/starlink-spacex-a... And thanks to SpaceX (and now Amazon), astronomers will now have to do their observations from space. If only there was a way to get telescopes up there. Oh, wait... SpaceX just happens to have a way to solve the problem it creat…
What's particulary dystopic about it? Preserving nature is valuable because we rely on the ecosystem, you can't really make that argument for the dead emptiness that is space. Ubiquitous space access even is a common theme in scifi utopias!
I think it's close but missing one really key point. Imagine if this was being done by some non profit international consortium funded by many nations.
Re: Amazon Seeks Permission to Launch 3k Internet Satellites
#16At what point should we start worrying about Kessler Syndrome? > The Kessler syndrome (also called the Kessler effect,[1][2] collisional cascading or ablation cascade), proposed by the NASA scientist Donald J. Kessler in 1978, is a scenario in which the density of objects in low Earth orbit (LEO) is high enough that collisions between objects could cause a cascade in which each collision generates space debris that i…
Those dense internet satellite constellations will be in low earth orbit, which have relatively fast decay times. So even in the worst case it would only set us back by a few decades while either cleanup solutions are developed or we wait for them to decay naturally.
You can still launch through the debris field into higher orbits because the collision probability will be quite low at any given moment, it just adds up over time for things that want to stay there.
Re: Amazon Seeks Permission to Launch 3k Internet Satellites
#17Anyone wanna offer me their hypothesis on what Amazon and other tech companies gain from offering internet to people who probably aren't valuable consumers?
It s a ruse. The US will win the landgrab for controlling the communication networks of up and coming regions like Africa before the Chinese do
Re: Amazon Seeks Permission to Launch 3k Internet Satellites
#18Are there any international agreements covering this stuff?
What if China decide they want to launch another 3000 and Russia want to launch another 3000 and India and Japan and whoever else?
Re: Amazon Seeks Permission to Launch 3k Internet Satellites
#19Welcome to the dystopian future where no human anywhere on Earth can look up and see an authentic sky, as their ancestors did. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/01/science/starlink-spacex-a... And thanks to SpaceX (and now Amazon), astronomers will now have to do their observations from space. If only there was a way to get telescopes up there. Oh, wait... SpaceX just happens to have a way to solve the problem it creat…
What's particulary dystopic about it? Preserving nature is valuable because we rely on the ecosystem, you can't really make that argument for the dead emptiness that is space. Ubiquitous space access even is a common theme in scifi utopias!
If you've ever looked up at the sky at night in a dark area I don't think you could honestly say it's "dead emptiness". It's fascinating to gaze up at the stars and taking that away would be a tragedy
Re: Amazon Seeks Permission to Launch 3k Internet Satellites
#20Welcome to the dystopian future where no human anywhere on Earth can look up and see an authentic sky, as their ancestors did. https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/01/science/starlink-spacex-a... And thanks to SpaceX (and now Amazon), astronomers will now have to do their observations from space. If only there was a way to get telescopes up there. Oh, wait... SpaceX just happens to have a way to solve the problem it creat…
I don't think 3000 satellites are nearly enough to completely blot out the sky across the entire planet.