How satellite ‘megaconstellations’ will photobomb astronomy images • Hacker News Board

Re: How satellite ‘megaconstellations’ will photobomb astronomy images

#391

Post by simion314 » Fri, Aug 28, 2020, 6:45 PM UTC

iso1210 wrote: post #378

simion314 wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disagree, if I make a factory in China that generates some ugly clouds so you can't see your beautiful sky anymore, then if you complain I give you a discount on my airlines so you can fly above the clouds and see the sky for the first time. It could happen if we let companies pollute for free.

I have a view over the ocean. Along comes Shell and builds an oil rig, thus spoiling my view. I have a view over the ocean, 50 miles up the coast in another country a marina opens, and dozens of sailing ships start arriving over the hour. I have a view, and an airport opens down the road, I'm now under a flight path, not only is my view obscured, I'm getting noise too.

There is a thing called pollution and light pollution is a thing,

So you have a home and someone makes noise so you can't sleep, you have a home and your neighbor has pig shit in his backyard and the smell enters in your yard.

Also I amargueing from a public(international) point of view. As an individual with terrible eyes sight I already can't see the stars anymore.

Re: How satellite ‘megaconstellations’ will photobomb astronomy images

#392

Post by TeMPOraL » Fri, Aug 28, 2020, 7:20 PM UTC

simion314 wrote: post #390

TeMPOraL wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> What I am saying if Elon or Jeff makes a telescope work harder or impossible they should pay for fixing the issue not the public and it should be fixed today not in 50 years. SpaceX is doing what it can to "fix it". There's not much more that can be done beyond just not launching satellites. At this point, you have to choose whether you want clean skies or humanity spacefaring; you can't have both. I'm strongly in…

Still, so maybe we should be mathematical about this: how much it costs to fix this and tax every new satellite proportional with it's pollution. SpaceX tried to "fix" things only when bad PR hit them, before that some leaders there decided that this is not an issue. The tax would also insensitivese to launch better/smaller satellites and not abuse the fact that launch is cheap so let's put as many stuff in orbit bec…

> Still, so maybe we should be mathematical about this: how much it costs to fix this and tax every new satellite proportional with it's pollution.

That hinges on the quantifying and pricing of the solution. A smart accountant could probably figure out a fair calculation (something along the lines of % of wasted observation time, against operating costs of telescope facility in that time + depreciation). I'd love to see it.

> SpaceX tried to "fix" things only when bad PR hit them, before that some leaders there decided that this is not an issue.

I'll concede on this since I haven't been following the story until it hit media, and only then I've heard about SpaceX painting the satellites. I'm guessing they just didn't consider it at all, or were betting on astronomers not being that upset.

> IMO if you managed to somehow have electricity and old fashion telephone cables then what the hell is expensive to drag a new cable for internet to this places ?

That was before telcom monopolies, and also before people figured out they can hold infrastructure projects ransom, or block them out of spite, just because they own a piece of land that needs to be dug up or paved over.

Re: How satellite ‘megaconstellations’ will photobomb astronomy images

#393

Post by lutorm » Fri, Aug 28, 2020, 7:21 PM UTC

sfblah wrote: post #359

lutorm wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you think you can competitively install fiber to all the areas that will be served by Starlink, then it seems you should be able to outcompete them. No one's preventing you from giving it a try.

Well I mentioned Fixed Wireless as well. Also, there's room for government in this. That's like suggesting highways, high-speed rail and airports should all be privately funded. In most cases, societies have chosen to make those projects the purview of the government.

I agree, but that doesn't affect the question of competitiveness between satellite and ground options.

A few thousand satellites sounds like a lot, but the amount of ground installations that would have to be done to give the same area of access is staggering.

Re: How satellite ‘megaconstellations’ will photobomb astronomy images

#394

Post by vanderZwan » Fri, Aug 28, 2020, 10:21 PM UTC

valuearb wrote: post #387

vanderZwan wrote: post #353

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about looking at what the username of the person you replied to spells out. Then click on it, look through their comment history and do some homework.

That doesn’t give them cart Blanche to post incorrect assertions. That would be called a “appeal to authority” argument.

I think you're mistaking "giving them carte blanche" for "highlighting one mistake they make in a long post containing a lot more information, context and nuance without acknowledging any of that in the slightest, and use that as if you caught them red-handed in a gotcha! that breaks down their entire argument".

I guess that's a specific version of the "cherry-picking data" fallacy.

Re: How satellite ‘megaconstellations’ will photobomb astronomy images

#395

Post by olleromam91 » Sun, Aug 30, 2020, 9:45 PM UTC

modeless wrote: post #67

svara wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you know what the final orbits are? Why would they not be visible on the final orbits? Sure, only a fraction of the satellites will be above you and illuminated by the sun, but at 30000 that's still bound to be a huge number. See for example this guy who tried to model this for the lower number of 12000: https://twitter.com/Alex_Parker/status/1132335640605945856

The final orbits are approved in advance by the government; there's no mystery. They are not visible to the naked eye in their final orbits because they are farther away and they maintain an orientation that allows their sunshade to reflect sunlight away from Earth instead of toward it.

That's good to know. Still, with tens of thousands of satellites planned (that's just SpaceX) and the need for them to de-orbit and then redeploy, I think there is going to be quite a few of these things visible at any given time.