Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

eso.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

251–260 of 334 posts

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

#251

Post by PowerElectronix »

dgellow wrote: post #115
Legend2440 wrote: post #8

This is a tradeoff we have to make with infrastructure and development in general. How do you balance human needs with pristine nature? Do we put up long-distance power lines and wind farms even though they ruin the views? Do you tear down a forest to put up farmlands and suburbs? Do you build a dam to provide water for irrigation, even though it kills the fish and floods a valley? Satellites are actually easier than…

> How do you balance human needs with pristine nature? How about we set a limit on how many satellites? That’s exactly how to balance

Who sets it, then? The people that can make money out of the satellites or use their services or the people that want clean skies?

And how do you enforce it? It's not like you can just go up there an repo the satellites.

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

#252

Post by well_ackshually »

piloto_ciego wrote: post #145
tadfisher wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

> In Star Trek canon, humanity figured out how to live in utopia by destroying all existing power structures in a Third World War. Perhaps we could try to destroy those power structures without having a giant war lol, just saying. > 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 eventua…

>Perhaps we could try to destroy those power structures without having a giant war lol, just saying.

Does not, will not and cannot happen. Power structures are made to keep themselves alive at any cost necessary. There will be a bloodbath one way or another, and these structures will either disappear, or march ever forward towards enslaving you.

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

#253

Post by Peanuts99 »

tekne wrote: post #167
toasty228 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But there is the rest of the world, and if I'm told that the Africans When the average African live like the average American we'll be truly fucked, probably even before that. We should raise the bottom for sure but we definitely need to cure the degeneracy of the top too Technosolutionism is a cult. We either put the caps on ourself or nature will hard cap us anyways, in a much harsher way.

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.

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

#254

Post by notrealyme123 »

sajithdilshan wrote: post #250

I’m shocked, an European agency wants to regulate how many satellites should orbit earth at a given time? Is regulation the only solution EU has for everything? Have they forgotten how to think a bit more creatively? Like developing algorithms to remove clutter added by satellites in observation data or even to deploy more space telescopes. Is that too much to ask?

> A new European Southern Observatory (ESO) study has found that current proposals to launch over 1.7 million satellites into orbit, including extremely bright ones, would have “devastating consequences for astronomy.”

I have a hard time fitting your response to the posted article.

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

#255

Post by utopiah »

rightbyte wrote: post #249
utopiah wrote: post #246

I would be curious how impactful people here think SpaceX satellite fleet is. Satellite communication is an impressive technical feet. In some very niche cases it is the only viable way. In the vast majority of cases though it is terrible compared to laying down cables. What LEO does is addressing a minuscule market. Sure you know a guy, or you might even has a dish on your van, and honestly that's cool. But that is…

I'd say Starlink's main selling point is spying not utility for cell phone users.

I don't see why would anybody accept that without a significant upside.

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

#256

Post by infinitewars »

kmaitreys wrote: post #245
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.

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

[dead]

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

#257

Post by balfirevic »

fc417fc802 wrote: post #129
verdverm wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Compare it to air planes, which are already at a much more significant scale. Accounting for fuel type and combustion efficiency seems relevant. I recall around SpaceX 100th landing, that a day of just transatlantic flights was more than everything SpaceX had done to that point

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.

"General aviation" does not include commercial air transport, so that's probably not what you meant.

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

#258

Post by expedition32 »

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.

What progress? Having a dozen separate satellite networks that all do the same thing?

This ain't progress it is an indictment of man's stupidity.

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

#259

Post by rightbyte »

utopiah wrote: post #255
rightbyte wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd say Starlink's main selling point is spying not utility for cell phone users.

I don't see why would anybody accept that without a significant upside.

There are no upside for non Starlink subscribers and we weren't asked either.

I dunno how many times a day they snoop my phone position from space. Best case Mr Musk only know there is a phone here on the sun deck not which one. I don't know if the signal leaks PI.

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

#260

Post by expedition32 »

piloto_ciego wrote: post #168
roughly wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Pre-Green revolution humanity probably couldn’t make a utopia. Post-Green revolution humanity hasn’t pulled it off either.

It's a lot better than it was for the average human on earth than it was a couple centuries ago. Utopia can't happen overnight.

Infamously the 19th century saw declining living conditions in my country despite the technological and scientific progress.

It is socialism that gets us to utopia not the technology.

Post reply on HN