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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

#301

Post by brookst »

estearum wrote: post #296
criddell wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And a lot of starlink customers agree. How can this be resolved?

Easy: Starlink should internalize its negative externalities. As a first pass, we can estimate how much astronomy infrastructure ($$$) is negatively impacted ($$$) by Starlink and pass those costs to them.

And new astronomy infra should obviously pay Starlink for the mitigations they put in place, right?

Maybe water rights really are the best model for this, but it’s a terrible model as demonstrated everywhere there are water rights. I’d like to think there’s a more sensible approach.

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

#302

Post by brookst »

strangecasts wrote: post #180
upofadown wrote: post #55

>SpaceX plans to send one million more satellites into orbit, for space-based data centres, ... I think we should wait to see how the first satellite data centre works out. It seems fairly unlikely that it could be practical. It seems kind of nuts... >Reflect Orbital, a US start-up, aims to launch a constellation of very large mirror-like satellites to provide sunlight at night, with reflected beams that span at leas…

> I think we should wait to see how the first satellite data centre works out. It seems fairly unlikely that it could be practical. It seems kind of nuts... I strongly suspect that what'll happen is SpaceX does launch satellites with onboard GPUs, so the SpaceX hypemen can go "the skeptics said it couldn't be done!" and take off before the actual, more crucial question of "does it make _financial_ sense?" is answered…

Sure, but you think they’ll invest in a million of them?

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

#303

Post by estearum »

brookst wrote: post #301
estearum wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Easy: Starlink should internalize its negative externalities. As a first pass, we can estimate how much astronomy infrastructure ($$$) is negatively impacted ($$$) by Starlink and pass those costs to them.

And new astronomy infra should obviously pay Starlink for the mitigations they put in place, right? Maybe water rights really are the best model for this, but it’s a terrible model as demonstrated everywhere there are water rights. I’d like to think there’s a more sensible approach.

Why would new astronomy infra pay for the Starlink's negative externalities?

Yeah it turns out that "divvy up finite resource" is actually just an intrinsically nightmarish problem when it's something no one intrinsically owns, didn't create, but needs nonetheless, like water and land.

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

#304

Post by runarberg »

SubiculumCode wrote: post #223
runarberg wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ideally 0:0

Since that ideal is not ever going to be a reality unless every human is dead, I'll treat that as a deflection. Having to govern means throwing away fantasies and working with the world we actually live in to protect our actually very real families.

a) You are allowed to dream big

b) You are allowed to set ambitious goals

c) Your speech (e.g. “protect our families”) mirrors those of war mongers, what about the families who’s your bombs are pointing at?

Nobody gets to tell me to throw away my dream of a better and more humane world, and settle for one with horrors and war crimes. Us humans have multiple times in the past significantly reduced our weapons of war, we can, and should, do so again. Lets start with the missiles, and I‘m sure the interceptors will follow.

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

#305

Post by kmaitreys »

sokoloff wrote: post #282
kmaitreys wrote: post #245

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you define what progress is being made by creating more space junk?

Do you ever use GPS (for navigation or time sync)? Do you ever use Starlink? Do you make use of weather forecasts? Or fly on an airliner that uses any of those three? Watch a televised program from the other side of the planet?

Yes, I can do most of the things now because enough is already up there. Can you elaborate why do you want more? Like a million more as these companies are planning?

When is it enough?

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

#306

Post by sokoloff »

kmaitreys wrote: post #305
sokoloff wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you ever use GPS (for navigation or time sync)? Do you ever use Starlink? Do you make use of weather forecasts? Or fly on an airliner that uses any of those three? Watch a televised program from the other side of the planet?

Yes, I can do most of the things now because enough is already up there. Can you elaborate why do you want more? Like a million more as these companies are planning? When is it enough?

Even if literally no new applications popped up, capacity and coverage increases for existing applications require increases in satellite count.

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

#307

Post by notrealyme123 »

sajithdilshan wrote: post #274
notrealyme123 wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ESO is not an EU agency. They don't write anything about regularisation. I stand with my original comment.

Yeah you’re right, all the member countries are in African continent ( https://www.eso.org/public/about-eso/memberstates/ )

And government agency is a part of the government. The ESO is not part of the government.

If they say: "We shouldn't mess up the sky", it's the same as if CERN says: "We shouldn't eat anti matter."

It's foremost a warning.

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

#308

Post by partomniscient »

aristofun wrote: post #270

We don’t take our cities sound and light pollution seriously. I bet it plays important role in all the anxiety and other popular health issues rising.

I still remember thinking as a young person (now 50+) that it was stupid leaving all these lights on at night, particularly corporate logos on buildings.

I've moved out of the city and can see most of the stars still, although my eyesight is now failing and I can't see stars I used to...

We are becoming inwardly and selfishly focused as a species and disconnected to the world the alone the rest of the solar system/universe.

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

#309

Post by croes »

lstodd wrote: post #299
croes wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s why luck is a big factor and amateur astronomers are a great help in spotting them by chance

What exactly do you propose to do with a 50m chondite coming our way?

We have agencies to handle that but they need to know it’s coming.

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

#310

Post by chicken-stew »

strangecasts wrote: post #180
upofadown wrote: post #55

>SpaceX plans to send one million more satellites into orbit, for space-based data centres, ... I think we should wait to see how the first satellite data centre works out. It seems fairly unlikely that it could be practical. It seems kind of nuts... >Reflect Orbital, a US start-up, aims to launch a constellation of very large mirror-like satellites to provide sunlight at night, with reflected beams that span at leas…

> I think we should wait to see how the first satellite data centre works out. It seems fairly unlikely that it could be practical. It seems kind of nuts... I strongly suspect that what'll happen is SpaceX does launch satellites with onboard GPUs, so the SpaceX hypemen can go "the skeptics said it couldn't be done!" and take off before the actual, more crucial question of "does it make _financial_ sense?" is answered…

I expect it to be more like servers that cache frequent content, to reduce the round trip delay.
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