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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

#311

Post by Dig1t »

isthatafact wrote: post #265
xadhominemx wrote: post #5

I am a science and astronomy fan, but I am sorry, in this case progress is more important. If we regret our decision, the LEOs will fall out of the sky by themselves in a few years and it will be ok.

Science is progress. Putting mirrors in space in order to provide sunlight at night seems more like willful destruction than progress.

Connectivity for the entire globe does more for progress. Millions of people have access to the wealth of human knowledge that wouldn’t otherwise have it (Africa, rural people around the world).

Additionally, what we lose in visibility from earth we will more than gain in visibility from space telescopes, which will be funded by profits provided by LEO satellites.

Any way you slice it, it’s a massive net increase in scientific progress and quality of life for many millions of people.

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

#312

Post by kmaitreys »

sokoloff wrote: post #306
kmaitreys wrote: post #305

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm sorry but this is not a good enough argument for gutting science. You need to justify that capacity and coverage increase is required.

The companies trying to make these plans are just looking for money. It's not for some noble goal for progress. If you fail to see that, I'm sorry for you.

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

#313

Post by tekne »

Peanuts99 wrote: post #253
tekne wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll wear the dunce hat if I have to, but I don't want to be an animal . I am one, now, but I don't have to be one. I refuse to be limited by what is "naturally" possible -- my nature is to be a being with a mind, and so the only limit I must respect is the raw laws of physics, whatever they are. And physics lets me get a lot further than "8 billion Americans."

But that's just what OP is saying, you can 'refuse' to be limited to nature, but nature will have other plans for you.

I suppose there's nature -- i.e. physics -- and Nature, i.e. the false god of the status quo. These are not, in fact, the same thing.

Small-n nature says (as best as I can tell) that I must obey conservation of mass and can't go faster than light -- and hence that I probably cannot, in fact, sustain a population of a 100 billion on Earth alone without significantly cutting down individual resource access.

Until very recently big-N Nature said we'd never have heavier-than-air-flight, an automatic translation program (see: plot point in A Fire upon the Deep), or, before the Green Revolution, a population above a few billion -- but just as there's no fundamental physical law forbidding these things (and hence they came to pass) so there really is no fundamental physical law stopping all of current humanity from living a decent life (happy to be proved otherwise).

It may be impossible with current technology, sure, but there's no new physics required to make it possible -- the physics we have now permit it, with sufficient technology.

In fact -- interestingly enough -- before nuclear energy you'd have a far stronger point (though solar energy now means even without nuclear we can probably scrape by enough energy -- but coal does in fact have a Malthusian problem)

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

#314

Post by fc417fc802 »

stevage wrote: post #289
fc417fc802 wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, they don't matter when compared to general aviation or even just consumer shipping. And in all cases, if you produce the fuel using renewables then the CO2 output is trivially brought near zero.

> And in all cases, if you produce the fuel using renewables then the CO2 output is trivially brought near zero. But...they don't.

But they could. Which generally means that objections of the form "we should cut back on [activity] because it produces too much CO2" are misplaced. The only activity we need to cut back on is the extraction of geological carbon.

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

#315

Post by earth-tattoo »

Ray20 wrote: post #286
earth-tattoo wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A limit that India and China are totally going to ignore?

They won't ignore it if Americans and Europeans agree to contribute their fair share to the well-being of all the people and stop hoarding all the world's wealth to themselves. A situation where the minimum wage in some regions of the US is over $15, while in parts of India have the median wage is less than 50 cents, is an unjust absurdity.

India having a wage of 50 cent is somehow America's fault? They failed to develop their infrastructure, and as a result their economy. That's their fault, nobody else's.

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

#316

Post by Ray20 »

earth-tattoo wrote: post #315
Ray20 wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They won't ignore it if Americans and Europeans agree to contribute their fair share to the well-being of all the people and stop hoarding all the world's wealth to themselves. A situation where the minimum wage in some regions of the US is over $15, while in parts of India have the median wage is less than 50 cents, is an unjust absurdity.

India having a wage of 50 cent is somehow America's fault? They failed to develop their infrastructure, and as a result their economy. That's their fault, nobody else's.

Look, I'm not suggesting we do anything bad to Americans and Europeans. Just let them pay their fair share to those they've driven into poverty.

Or do you enjoy the suffering of billions of people working for less than 50 cents? Americans and Europeans only need to share with them what is let say above $5, and then we can get almost $2 for EVERY worker on Earth.

It is necessary to at least slightly limit one’s greed and show compassion to other people who are in an extremely vulnerable position.

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

#317

Post by verdverm »

croes wrote: post #189
verdverm wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or services where you can buy some photos, like we have for the telescopes pointed at earth

Great, a fee to look at the sky

Light pollution from the ground is causing more impact on (naked eye / amateur telescope) star viewing than satellites. My comment is more for the niche of people who find value in purchasing satellite time, they could be pointed in the other direction.

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

#318

Post by brookst »

estearum wrote: post #303
brookst wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Well if you build a new telescope where there are already satellites doing their business with no objections, shouldn’t you be required to pay for changes in their business, if the principle is first claimant?

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

#319

Post by isthatafact »

Dig1t wrote: post #311
isthatafact wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Science is progress. Putting mirrors in space in order to provide sunlight at night seems more like willful destruction than progress.

Connectivity for the entire globe does more for progress. Millions of people have access to the wealth of human knowledge that wouldn’t otherwise have it (Africa, rural people around the world). Additionally, what we lose in visibility from earth we will more than gain in visibility from space telescopes, which will be funded by profits provided by LEO satellites. Any way you slice it, it’s a massive net increase in…

It does not need to be a choice between having internet or seeing stars at night.

Also, telescopes on the ground can be made much bigger and more powerful than in space, so even if some satellite profits were somehow (magically?) directed toward space telescopes, losing the night sky would be bad for science.

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

#320

Post by privong »

lstodd wrote: post #293
Panzer04 wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Radio telescopes are hilariously massive. I'm not sure it'd be easy to reproduce their capabilities in space?

Why not? They are massive only because you are limited by earth surface. In space there are no limits, see Radioastron for example, and that was decades ago. Right now for the price of that one project one could have a humongous radio telescope in orbit without any interference. If only people could really look forward.

> In space there are no limits, see Radioastron for example, and that was decades ago.

Radioastron required cross-correlating the signal with ground-based radio teleacopes in order to do science. The collecting area, dish distributons, etc. would need to be fully replicated in space if one wanted to avoid using ground-based facilities entirely.

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