101–110 of 147 posts
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I like this map, I just wish it didn't start with auto-rotate on. Auto-rotate just makes it hard to see as the satellites travel around the world.
Original author here, my fault. I think it made more sense when there were less satellites, but this was a pretty common opinion from the start.
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It's the same argument as for a carbon tax. It's imperfect, because the benefit only flows to the local government (when the commons is globally shared, as you point out), but it's the best practical solution since it broadly aligns incentives with that of the commons. Your solution to simply deprive rural communities/poor countries of internet access is a non-starter . What you're ignoring is that the positive exter…
I'm interested in what your opinion is of the exact same thing with poor countries burning lots of coal and polluting the oceans to lift their population out of poverty. Is it okay for China and India to have their time doing industrial era style pollution today or should we try to apply our modern anti-pollution rules on them? Because when the rich western countries have launched lots and lots of satellits then poor…
We also have a coverage map for Starlink: https://orbitalindex.com/feature/starlink-coverage/
Perhaps you can also give filters for "on station" satellites from all. Satellites not yet in station are not really giving coverage yet ?
When I originally created this it was so sparse that it was really easy to distinguish, now that would probably be a useful feature.
It's also just not that simple to implement. I threw this together really quickly, and the only data I am using is the orbit tracks, it doesn't include whether or not a satellite is on station yet.
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> They could theatrically also launch fewer, but put them all the way into their final orbit I wonder if they might choose to do this so the sats keep more of their onboard fuel, and will be able to keep themselves in orbit a bit longer before the inevitable re-entry burn up.
Re-entry is a bit of a feature, though - should a satellite be DOA, it will be in a low orbit and burn up faster.
It would mean that 1 DOA satellite means bringing down 2, but that might be worth it if the DOA rate is low.
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That depends on how dark the area is. I heard that in a Bortle 5 or lower area they are naked eye visible, which really sucks for stargazers. Especially since some of the more interesting naked eye observations have to be done using peripheral vision.
In what location can you see naked eye visibility down to 6th magnitude? You must have really good eyes.
I personally like https://www.heavens-above.com/ Give it a location and it will tell you all the bright objects that should be visible
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That depends on how dark the area is. I heard that in a Bortle 5 or lower area they are naked eye visible, which really sucks for stargazers. Especially since some of the more interesting naked eye observations have to be done using peripheral vision.
I've been unable to see them in class 2 areas. I'm a pretty ardent stargazer.
While I won't subscribe (I have fiber), I am excited about what this might mean for the future. It would amazing to improve the technology enough to replace 4G/5G dongles. It sounds like the technology relies on being in a somewhat fixed position though.
One obvious synergy that comes to mind (if the base stations won't have to be geographically fixed) is to stream raw video from all cameras from all Teslas. Both for sentry mode (antitheft) and autonomy training. Of course it would be regulatory nightmare.
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Thanks for the info!
Absolutely! Things will be really interesting when they can use Starships to launch batches. I've seen estimates that they could launch 600 starlink satellites at a time. They could theatrically also launch fewer, but put them all the way into their final orbit, skipping the few weeks of light pollution.
They are getting a bit too good at reducing Starlink visibility lately so I could definitely welcome an event like that. :)
While I won't subscribe (I have fiber), I am excited about what this might mean for the future. It would amazing to improve the technology enough to replace 4G/5G dongles. It sounds like the technology relies on being in a somewhat fixed position though.