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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

#81

Post by Teever »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #45
acdha wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 get where you're coming from but we haven't really seen any sort of space based telescope designs that take advantage of the Falcon launch paradigm of cheap and reliable launches.

Some sort of modular telescope array that could be launched in pieces and self-assemble in orbit. Something that improves in capacity as more pieces are added.

Everything seems to have stalled in this field, as if it's just waiting for a Starship which may never come.

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

#82

Post by verdverm »

matthewdgreen wrote: post #75
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…

I didn't understand what these satellites were really like until I visited Zion National Park two weeks ago. Zion is an International Dark Sky park, and so I was really looking forward to seeing the stars. Instead we sat outside and watched dozens and dozens of fast-moving stars zip around on all sorts of trajectories. I'm not saying it ruined the experience (I'm not an astronomer, and it was kind of fun.) But it rea…

What time were you there? My understanding is that around dawn/dusk, the angles cause reflection, but for most of the time they are not visible.

Also, what about planes? Those also cause similar light streaks. Another understanding I currently hold is that there is already a method for removing these artifacts

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

#83

Post by pwg »

rcpt wrote: post #6

Why are they bright? Do they have big lights flashing or is it reflection

Likely because, in space, reflective items don't heat up as much from sunlight as would a dark, energy absorbing, material. Shedding heat in space is a difficult enough endeavor already without also painting your satellite black so it reflects less light (and thereby absorbs more heat).

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

#84

Post by phainopepla2 »

matthewdgreen wrote: post #75
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…

I didn't understand what these satellites were really like until I visited Zion National Park two weeks ago. Zion is an International Dark Sky park, and so I was really looking forward to seeing the stars. Instead we sat outside and watched dozens and dozens of fast-moving stars zip around on all sorts of trajectories. I'm not saying it ruined the experience (I'm not an astronomer, and it was kind of fun.) But it rea…

I had the same experience visit Mojave National Preserve. It was very distracting while trying to stargaze. I had to stay up late to see the night sky I remember

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

#85

Post by JumpCrisscross »

Teever wrote: post #81
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 get where you're coming from but we haven't really seen any sort of space based telescope designs that take advantage of the Falcon launch paradigm of cheap and reliable launches. Some sort of modular telescope array that could be launched in pieces and self-assemble in orbit. Something that improves in capacity as more pieces are added. Everything seems to have stalled in this field, as if it's just waiting for a…

> we haven't really seen any sort of space based telescope designs

We’re only starting to truly mass manufacture satellites. A world with millions of satellites means one with lots of satellite production and design economies of scale. (Same for all manner of sensors and optics.)

> as if it's just waiting for a Starship which may never come

Or it may. We’ll know in a couple years. Building a scaling production system for Falcon right now would be silly.

And if Starship never works out, we probably don’t see millions of satellites. It’s a fundamentally tied problem, which is why I say the analysis is incomplete.

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

#86

Post by tadfisher »

piloto_ciego wrote: post #48
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 pirac…

In Star Trek canon, humanity figured out how to live in utopia by destroying all existing power structures in a Third World War.

What is happening now is we have all our existing structure, and the existing requirement to earn money to live within this structure, and the human creative output we want in our eventual utopia is used to train automata with the express goal to replace humans in those creative endeavors, removing the ability for humans to earn money by being creative themselves.

It is not hard to see things from this perspective when a significant portion of writing is becoming obvious slop, and your liberal friends are having a hard time getting hired or landing writing deals or selling artwork. I would feel less important too; I'm already feeling this way when I review a PR with obvious LLM-generated descriptions and comments that reference the prompt.

Ideally, feeling important wouldn't be pejorative. Ideally, we'd have a way for artists to have food and shelter and continue to produce art. The hopes that AI will cause this to happen are equivalent to hoping WWIII will come along and wipe out 2/3 of humanity so we can start over with United Earth and warp drives and replicators.

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

#87

Post by AngryData »

CookieCrisp wrote: post #69
AngryData wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is people don't see the near future as a Star Trek utopia, they see it going more towards a dystopian landscape with handfuls of extremely wealthy elite dictating how they can live their life.

Which would make sense if they chose strategies that might stop that from happening. Instead the ones I know refuse to even learn what AI can do and refuse to see that they're not going to slow it's adoption down by sealing themselves off. The world was already heading towards a dystopian landscape without AI. So many people on this planet live in a horrific dystopia right now, and here comes along something that mig…

But our top 2 problems are political shenanigans and energy production. And neither are going to be solved by AI, both are made worse with AI.

AI is a useful tool, but tools aren't always used to improve lives.

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

#88

Post by afpx »

piloto_ciego wrote: post #48
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 pirac…

In 1990 I hoped my grandkids would be able to join starfleet. After watching most of the gains go to the worst, I just hope they can escape the borg.

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

#89

Post by brandensilva »

AngryData wrote: post #52
piloto_ciego wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 pirac…

The problem is people don't see the near future as a Star Trek utopia, they see it going more towards a dystopian landscape with handfuls of extremely wealthy elite dictating how they can live their life.

It's easy to see why people fear AI when our leaders talk of a future where many are jobless and replaced with no solutions to fill in the gaps.

AI adoption is a leadership failure more than a tech one right now. If you make people feel empowered with it, it can liberate work-free lives that humanity benefits from. If you use it to destroy people's livelihoods with no options it's not going to survive a revolution.

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

#90

Post by vova_hn2 »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #71
guelo wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we weren't busy stupidly destroying the institutions for international cooperation, it would be a UN body.

> it would be a UN body No UN body can command a nuclear sovereign. They ultimately continually consent to oversight.

> No UN body can command a nuclear sovereign.

Why not, though? If any country violates their limit, just issue a concern. If they ignore it, upgrade it to a grave concern. Then they will surely have to obey, I mean, it's grave concern we're talking about, what else they could do?

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