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“Beyond the limit”: Satellites and mirrors in space pose threat to the night sky

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Re: “Beyond the limit”: Satellites and mirrors in space pose threat to the night sky

#41

Post by toasty228 »

arjie wrote: post #13

These kinds of caps have for years been a dampener on human flourishing. My observation has been that those in stagnation or decline tend to attach themselves to these desires to hold the status quo. Anti-energy, anti-housing, anti-industry and so on because they've reached a local maxima in their ability to live and have chosen to spend their life in leisure. But there is the rest of the world, and if I'm told that…

> But there is the rest of the world, and if I'm told that the Africans

When the average African live like the average American we'll be truly fucked, probably even before that. We should raise the bottom for sure but we definitely need to cure the degeneracy of the top too

Technosolutionism is a cult. We either put the caps on ourself or nature will hard cap us anyways, in a much harsher way.

Re: “Beyond the limit”: Satellites and mirrors in space pose threat to the night sky

#43

Post by acdha »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #39
Normal_gaussian wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that "Africans should not have access to high-speed satellite Internet" is something you've just made up; the article you link talks about African people turning to Starlink because of local infrastructure issues, and the original article notes that the current satellite count is currently around 14k satellites. 100k is more than enough satellites to provide high-speed satellite internet globally. The article…

The article doesn’t consider that in a world with a million satellites in orbit, launching space-based telescopes—including into deep space—becomes an order of magnitude cheaper.

Does it? My understanding was that it’s less helpful for anything which isn’t in low-earth orbit because the commercial launch engineers are optimizing for the lucrative satellite business, not larger and higher payloads.

Re: “Beyond the limit”: Satellites and mirrors in space pose threat to the night sky

#45

Post by JumpCrisscross »

acdha wrote: post #43
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article doesn’t consider that in a world with a million satellites in orbit, launching space-based telescopes—including into deep space—becomes an order of magnitude cheaper.

Does it? My understanding was that it’s less helpful for anything which isn’t in low-earth orbit because the commercial launch engineers are optimizing for the lucrative satellite business, not larger and higher payloads.

> commercial launch engineers are optimizing for the lucrative satellite business, not larger and higher payloads

Commercial satellites are getting bigger and heavier. Launch that can put big and heavy in LEO can put big and slightly less heavy higher up. Add to that things like in-orbit propellant transfer and there is a good chance astronomy sees a golden age in the coming decades (in countries with space access).

I’m not dismissing the problem. Just this analysis as meriting any conclusions. It’s a start. But it’s only part of a full model of how these changes would affect astronomy.

Re: “Beyond the limit”: Satellites and mirrors in space pose threat to the night sky

#46

Post by nablaxcroissant »

I'm not sure how exactly they are making these calculations but I just don't see it. Both Reflect and SpaceX are targeting SSO orbits where they are only reflecting for an hour or two at sunset. That isn't true of Starlink, but that constellation is already up there and if its fine right now, I don't see it getting much worse as the materials on it get refined to be less problematic.

More regulations would just have the result of cementing a monopoly for Spacex.

Re: “Beyond the limit”: Satellites and mirrors in space pose threat to the night sky

#47

Post by JumpCrisscross »

snovv_crash wrote: post #28
arjie wrote: post #13

These kinds of caps have for years been a dampener on human flourishing. My observation has been that those in stagnation or decline tend to attach themselves to these desires to hold the status quo. Anti-energy, anti-housing, anti-industry and so on because they've reached a local maxima in their ability to live and have chosen to spend their life in leisure. But there is the rest of the world, and if I'm told that…

Maybe a fair allocation of sattelites would be proportional to the number of citizens with voting rights in the country. Maybe with some modifier about how impactful that voting can actually be (eg. citizen initiatives vs. just electing representatives from a preselected pool).

> a fair allocation

Who is doing this allocation? Who is going to tell Pyongyang, Beijing or Moscow they can’t launch anymore?

Re: “Beyond the limit”: Satellites and mirrors in space pose threat to the night sky

#48

Post by piloto_ciego »

arjie wrote: post #13

These kinds of caps have for years been a dampener on human flourishing. My observation has been that those in stagnation or decline tend to attach themselves to these desires to hold the status quo. Anti-energy, anti-housing, anti-industry and so on because they've reached a local maxima in their ability to live and have chosen to spend their life in leisure. But there is the rest of the world, and if I'm told that…

As a literal leftist by any reasonable metric, the recent trend towards “I wish it was 1995” and “AI is the worst” and “tech sucks now” from people I agree with on many other points frustrates me to no end.

“You guys know we could basically live in a Star Trek style utopia if we get this right, right?”

“The DATA cenTERS are STEALING the water and breaking Taleckshual ProPerty LERRS!”

Like, I thought we were for piracy, and against capital colonizing the space of creative ideas? But I guess what a lot of people were fond of was feeling important.

Re: “Beyond the limit”: Satellites and mirrors in space pose threat to the night sky

#49

Post by JumpCrisscross »

croes wrote: post #20
Legend2440 wrote: post #8

This is a tradeoff we have to make with infrastructure and development in general. How do you balance human needs with pristine nature? Do we put up long-distance power lines and wind farms even though they ruin the views? Do you tear down a forest to put up farmlands and suburbs? Do you build a dam to provide water for irrigation, even though it kills the fish and floods a valley? Satellites are actually easier than…

They hinder the view on asteroids coming our way. The purpose of most of these satellites is internet access where we already have less limited possibilities with less maintenance costs like constant replacement

> They hinder the view on asteroids coming our way

Source?

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