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Amazon Seeks Permission to Launch 3k Internet Satellites

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Re: Amazon Seeks Permission to Launch 3k Internet Satellites

#61

Post by Scaevolus »

new_realist wrote: post #46
the8472 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 u…

What about debris from LEO collisions moving into higher orbits?

A single impact can't put something into a higher circular orbit-- it can create an elliptical orbit with a higher apogee (max distance), but the correspondingly nearer perigee (closest approach) means that it experiences more atmospheric drag and falls out of orbit faster.

Re: Amazon Seeks Permission to Launch 3k Internet Satellites

#62

Post by gpm »

strikelaserclaw wrote: post #9

Anyone wanna offer me their hypothesis on what Amazon and other tech companies gain from offering internet to people who probably aren't valuable consumers?

Not valuable? Ships, oil rigs, airplanes, remote vacation destinations (e.g. ski lodges), etc have lots of money and a good concentration of rich people with lots of money.

Re: Amazon Seeks Permission to Launch 3k Internet Satellites

#63

Post by krapp »

reaperducer wrote: post #59
krapp wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think 3000 satellites are nearly enough to completely blot out the sky across the entire planet.

3,000 from Amazon, 10,000 already approved from SpaceX, who knows how many will go up from various companies in Europe, China, India, etc... This is the beginning, not the end.

Yeah... still not enough. Millions probably wouldn't be enough. It's a really big sky.

Re: Amazon Seeks Permission to Launch 3k Internet Satellites

#65

Post by _8j50 »

aalleavitch wrote: post #34
_8j50 wrote: post #24

Maybe it's time to talk about tech-free preserves established by international treaties. E.g.: sections of each continent and ocean can be declared tech free where modern technology is forbidden on earth,sea or land. This is so we don't lose and forget the nature that forged the present.

My knee jerk reaction to this was negative, but I really do think having some sense of preservation of the ways we lived in the past, for educational reasons if nothing else, is valuable. A living museum if you will.

The first thing I thought of is how microplastics are everywhere now. A preserve like the one I suggested would somewow ideally be protected even from things like that. Future researchers will have a good natural frame of reference to study various unnatural phenomena.

Re: Amazon Seeks Permission to Launch 3k Internet Satellites

#66

Post by caymanjim »

new_realist wrote: post #46
the8472 wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 u…

What about debris from LEO collisions moving into higher orbits?

Higher orbits require higher velocities, which aren't going to be reached by collision debris.

Re: Amazon Seeks Permission to Launch 3k Internet Satellites

#67

Post by godelski »

strikelaserclaw wrote: post #9

Anyone wanna offer me their hypothesis on what Amazon and other tech companies gain from offering internet to people who probably aren't valuable consumers?

There's a few, but mostly AWS.

If you're going to put up satellites to do low latency internet, they need to be in LEO. (Speed of light is slow and GEO is far away) This ends up allowing you to provide internet in most locations as well. Kinda a spin-off.

So they want to provide high speed internet to any first world without having to build tons of physical towers (you still need them). I also wouldn't be surprised if Sl Americans who live in sparsely populated areas use Amazon as a primary place to obtain things (I know I did).

So now we can also do things like provide high speed and low latency internet to ships, islands, and people all over the world. Remember that most of Amazon's business is AWS, not Amazon.com. Less than half the world population is on the internet. More users means more servers. Easy to see the the major advantage. Amazon doesn't care if they're using Amazon.com but if they're using AWS. Which there's a good chance they will.

Tldr: AWS is where they currently make their money and where more users will just increase that capital.

Re: Amazon Seeks Permission to Launch 3k Internet Satellites

#68

Post by dharmab »

strikelaserclaw wrote: post #9

Anyone wanna offer me their hypothesis on what Amazon and other tech companies gain from offering internet to people who probably aren't valuable consumers?

One of Starlink's planned markets is global high frequency trading. The latency of radio and laser transmission in atmosphere and space is much lower than undersea fiber optic cables. (Light moves significantly slower through glass than through air.) Even with the longer distance and retransmission they stand a good chance of being lower latency across oceans than undersea cables.

Re: Amazon Seeks Permission to Launch 3k Internet Satellites

#69

Post by godelski »

dharmab wrote: post #68
strikelaserclaw wrote: post #9

Anyone wanna offer me their hypothesis on what Amazon and other tech companies gain from offering internet to people who probably aren't valuable consumers?

One of Starlink's planned markets is global high frequency trading. The latency of radio and laser transmission in atmosphere and space is much lower than undersea fiber optic cables. (Light moves significantly slower through glass than through air.) Even with the longer distance and retransmission they stand a good chance of being lower latency across oceans than undersea cables.

I did the math on this. It probably wouldn't be good for hft. The highly profitable hft is done on the floor of the nyse. There's some from Boston but they typically use directed radio instead of fiber-optic. Satellites will be even slower, but maybe cheaper if you're sending date from California or Australia. But it's still probably cheaper (and more profitable) to put a machine on the floor or even just in NYC.

I'm not sure why hft would be a major pitch. These people fight for floor space at the nyse because that much latency matters.

Re: Amazon Seeks Permission to Launch 3k Internet Satellites

#70

Post by mtarnovan »

djsumdog wrote: post #21
throw0101a wrote: post #10

At 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…

I've heard that at least with the SpaceX satellites, they have full plans for decommissioning with these satellites re-entering the atmosphere. I do agree that this is a real concern though, and we'd hope there's pretty careful consideration, considering the sheer number of satellites being launched. Still, space is big .. really big, even the space just above our planet. I don't put it past humanity to not fuck up s…

This is relevant: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yS1ibDImAYU
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