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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

#211

Post by garbagewoman »

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…

Can you expand more on your plans to give Africans more access to high speed internet?

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

#214

Post by alchemism »

SubiculumCode wrote: post #91
sylos wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Defense is just a polite term for war.

There is this mistaken idea out there that if the U.S. were to disarm, then other nations would also disarm, and the whole world would live in peace. But history tells us over and over that power abhors a vacuum, and were the U.S. to leave the world, another would take its place, probably Russia or China. If we disarmed, then another nation with arms will inevitably invade the U.S.

Fun fact: a successful invasion of the North American continent has very little to do with weaponry and more to do with logistics and projection of force across an ocean. There is only one superpower with the capabilities to do it at all.

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

#215

Post by [deleted] »

reaperducer wrote: post #207
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…

These kinds of caps have for years been a dampener on human flourishing. I am a human being. I flourish when I can see the planets and stars. The utopia you describe sounds more like technological fetishism that benefits a select few, not the entirety of humanity.

[deleted]

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

#216

Post by SapporoChris »

0-_-0 wrote: post #10

If we can launch 1M satellites, how many telescopes can we launch?

Agreed, I think the entire issue can be resolved with more telescopes in orbit.

I can understand European Southern Observatory (ESO) being concerned about becoming obsolete, but is the astronomy community as a whole concerned about the issue?

I understand there's currently around 722 observatories (some defunct, some are in orbit) based on this source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_astronomical_observato...

But perhaps there are others I am unaware of.

Quoted: Hainaut explains that "satellites, illuminated by the Sun, are much brighter than distant galaxies. When a satellite crosses what we observe, it makes a bright streak on our image, zapping whatever is behind it."

It sounds like this only affects visible light telescopes.

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

#217

Post by defrost »

SapporoChris wrote: post #216
0-_-0 wrote: post #10

If we can launch 1M satellites, how many telescopes can we launch?

Agreed, I think the entire issue can be resolved with more telescopes in orbit. I can understand European Southern Observatory (ESO) being concerned about becoming obsolete, but is the astronomy community as a whole concerned about the issue? I understand there's currently around 722 observatories (some defunct, some are in orbit) based on this source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_astronomical_observato... B…

> sounds like this only affects visible light telescopes.

Nope - it's also an issue with radio telescopes, and radio arrays such as SKA

The Starlink constellation is leaking radio interference in bands it pinky promised it wouldn't and the issue got worse with successive generations despite assurances it would be addressed.

Such leakage isn't, of course, limited to dawn / dusk - it's ever present and ongoing.

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

#218

Post by tick_tock_tick »

vova_hn2 wrote: post #90
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

lol and who's going to enforce it? The only things enforced are when USA/Russia/China care about it.

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

#220

Post by jfim »

anabab wrote: post #200
edelbitter wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some scientific endeavors can be paused and maybe later relaunched, if funding has not dried up and temporarily-worthless machinery has not been left to rot. But stuff like mitigating the constant threat of big enough objects showing up on a collision course with earth should not be paused until those eye-catchers fall out of the sky. If there is something coming at us that can wipe out more than the stock price of o…

The year is 2026. Surely the orbits of all the satellites are known well enough, and optics are modelled well enough for telescopes to know which few pixels to ignore at any given moment?

Light scatters in the atmosphere, it's the same reason you can shine a laser beam and see it even though the light should be collimated. With enough sources of light, you end up with more background light pollution.
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