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

SpaceX delivers 3rd batch of Starlink satellites in two weeks

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

331–340 of 343 posts

Re: SpaceX delivers 3rd batch of Starlink satellites in two weeks

#331

Post by Dylan16807 »

someperson wrote: post #326
Dylan16807 wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's definitely something you attach to your roof and pointed at the sky, not something you want to be sitting in front of for hours. I could say the same thing about a light bulb, couldn't I? It heats your skin slowly, and it can't get far enough into your eyes to hurt your retina or anything.

Lightbulbs are visible light and infrared. It heats the surface of your skin. Microwaves penetrate your skin and even your skull. It's heating your brain like cooking food in a microwave. Yes, it's non-ionizing, but there's a relationship between heating, inflammation and cancer. And it's wrong to ignore it. Just take simple precautions like not sitting right in front of a 100W space antenna, but instead mount it on…

Starlink terminal transmissions are 14+GHz. It all converts to heat within a millimeter or two. It can't heat your brain. (And even if it could, "like cooking food" is a bad way to describe the fraction of a degree you'd get.)

Also the actual signal from that antenna is 20 watts or less. If it heats you, that's going to be because it's warm.

Re: SpaceX delivers 3rd batch of Starlink satellites in two weeks

#332

Post by nickik »

ixfo wrote: post #230
serf wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Most things in life are like this. Wind turbines are a great way to supply green energy, but building them takes a lot of energy. Reminder : we only have one sky. Things offer both positives and negatives, but a) generally those things are decided by local powers and authorities that can be influenced by local populations -- not corporations from specific countries that may or may not be far away and without local p…

This is an excellent summary of a lot of the kickback and risk for Elon. I think if Elon had gone to, say, the UN and tried to start a discussion about this stuff more generally to establish some ground rules for SpaceX and others, it would have been much better received. It would've given a forum to those affected - communities around the world and astronomers and other satellite operators - where none exists. Some…

> But Elon is not that sort of person, which is the great tragedy in all this.

If he was, SpaceX and Starlink wouldn't exist. Have you ever tried to handle anything at UN level? That a 10-20 year discussion and even then must likely nothing will be agree on.

The Outer-Space treaty has been argued about for 50+ years and not a single revision has been made.

SpaceX is fully in line with the current interventional space regulation. Nothing SpaceX is doing is qualitatively different then what anybody else does. They just do it more.

In fact, in many way SpaceX fast adjustment and dialogue with astronomy community is forward thinking. The reality is, its not UN and treaties that are gone solve these problems, but the actual stack holders working together.

SpaceX is working with ESA on LEO consolation safety (as ESA has multiple sats in the same region) and work with astronomers to find good compromises and give them the data they need to plan operations.

> constant satellite launches, maintenance, and deorbiting will not be viable cost-wise over the 20-40 years

The cost of accessing to space will drop 10x at least in the next 10 years and likely go down more after that.

> Just like nuclear, this is a perfectly good stop-gap. But the right answer is renewables - everyone knows it - it's just a matter of timing.

Actually nuclear would have been the right answer and the only reason 'renwables' (nuclear is practically renewable as well) are considered is because terrible global handling of nuclear has made it unpractical.

In 100-200 years people will be using nuclear, not renewables, they are the stop-gap for now.

Re: SpaceX delivers 3rd batch of Starlink satellites in two weeks

#333

Post by someperson »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #331
someperson wrote: post #326

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lightbulbs are visible light and infrared. It heats the surface of your skin. Microwaves penetrate your skin and even your skull. It's heating your brain like cooking food in a microwave. Yes, it's non-ionizing, but there's a relationship between heating, inflammation and cancer. And it's wrong to ignore it. Just take simple precautions like not sitting right in front of a 100W space antenna, but instead mount it on…

Starlink terminal transmissions are 14+GHz. It all converts to heat within a millimeter or two. It can't heat your brain. (And even if it could, "like cooking food" is a bad way to describe the fraction of a degree you'd get.) Also the actual signal from that antenna is 20 watts or less. If it heats you, that's going to be because it's warm.

That's for the schooling me with Cunningham's Law with the fact the frequency wasn't ~2.4GHz, and the signal power was way less than 100 watts.

Re: SpaceX delivers 3rd batch of Starlink satellites in two weeks

#334

Post by spiralx »

nickik wrote: post #280
itsoktocry wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

International issue???? I think you overestimate how much people care about a tiny luxury car maker...

Tesla is literally the largest selling EV maker in China. And if CCP simply starts attacking foreign auto-maker based on pretences based on pretences. Then the US have a significant interest in paying back China auto and battery makers in equal measure. And European car makers and companies also have to seriously ask them-selves when its gone happen to them. The deals about how the car market is set up, is being made…

> Tesla is literally the largest selling EV maker in China.

That's true for the Model 3 for the first half of 2020 only, they were a long way behind in 2019 and were outsold by the Wuling Hongguang Mini EV in the second half of 2020. Most of their competitors sell multiple models as well meaning that in some of those months they sold more EVs than Tesla overall.

The Model 3 smashed it for a few months last year, but they're not the largest selling EV maker in China.

Re: SpaceX delivers 3rd batch of Starlink satellites in two weeks

#335

Post by consumer451 »

consumer451 wrote: post #194
Magodo wrote: post #4

I'm keen to see Starlink deals with government censorship requests. Can a country even effectively enforce their requests? How will China enforce the Great Firewall for instance?

FWIW, there was a video with I believe Gwynn Shotwell saying every country, including the USA, required an “off switch” to receive approval. Nothing about line item censorship was mentioned.

Correction: This was a OneWeb video. My apologizes for there error. The interesting point still stands in my opinion.

Re: SpaceX delivers 3rd batch of Starlink satellites in two weeks

#336

Post by someperson »

someperson wrote: post #333
Dylan16807 wrote: post #331

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Starlink terminal transmissions are 14+GHz. It all converts to heat within a millimeter or two. It can't heat your brain. (And even if it could, "like cooking food" is a bad way to describe the fraction of a degree you'd get.) Also the actual signal from that antenna is 20 watts or less. If it heats you, that's going to be because it's warm.

That's for the schooling me with Cunningham's Law with the fact the frequency wasn't ~2.4GHz, and the signal power was way less than 100 watts.

Thanks*

Re: SpaceX delivers 3rd batch of Starlink satellites in two weeks

#337

Post by manicdee »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #169
manicdee wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The dark coating isn’t used anymore, they have a visor/sunshade instead. The satellites people can see with the naked eye have not reached their service orbit yet, and they are not aligned to use the sunshade (they are instead configured to raise orbit as quickly as possible). As for the rules about polluting space, the simple fact is that none of the rules makers expected that some agency would want to launch thousa…

> If you want to add rules about the number of satellites in orbit, better get in quick before StarLink becomes too valuable to ban. Question is, why would one want it? It's going to look like an equivalent of someone in XIX century capping the maximum amounts of widgets a factory can produce per year to a level that can be matched by artisan production, because all those conveyor belts and precision parts are making…

In the surface of the Earth we have designated conservation areas, wilderness areas and “dark sky parks” all intended to reduce the impact of human industry on the natural environment.

We do not need StarLink to industrialise space, and we do not need factories in low Earth orbit to maximally utilise space-borne resources.

This desire to pollute our skies with industrial light pollution will look to future humans as ill-guided and poorly motivated as draining the swamps (and later wondering why our ecosystems are failing).

Re: SpaceX delivers 3rd batch of Starlink satellites in two weeks

#338

Post by Dylan16807 »

ogre_codes wrote: post #328
gonehome wrote: post #308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess as a customer I don’t really care why they suck, I just know that they do. I also don’t care about small business if they provide bad service. From a policy standpoint as a citizen - I think it’s terrible the telecom monopolies took public money and did nothing, but I think they’ll start feeling competitive pressure from Starlink too, hopefully this will force them to adapt or die (I don’t really care which).…

> I guess as a customer I don’t really care why they suck, I just know that they do. I also don’t care about small business if they provide bad service. I guess it depends on what you mean by bad service. If by "Bad service" you mean don't return calls when your service is down, then I agree. If you are referring to bandwidth or latency, you are likely getting the best they can afford to give you for the price. It's…

> you are likely getting the best they can afford to give you for the price

Running fiber isn't really any more expensive than running copper, and they managed to afford to run the copper.

Re: SpaceX delivers 3rd batch of Starlink satellites in two weeks

#339

Post by nickik »

spiralx wrote: post #334
nickik wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla is literally the largest selling EV maker in China. And if CCP simply starts attacking foreign auto-maker based on pretences based on pretences. Then the US have a significant interest in paying back China auto and battery makers in equal measure. And European car makers and companies also have to seriously ask them-selves when its gone happen to them. The deals about how the car market is set up, is being made…

> Tesla is literally the largest selling EV maker in China. That's true for the Model 3 for the first half of 2020 only, they were a long way behind in 2019 and were outsold by the Wuling Hongguang Mini EV in the second half of 2020. Most of their competitors sell multiple models as well meaning that in some of those months they sold more EVs than Tesla overall. The Model 3 smashed it for a few months last year, but…

The Hongguang Mini is basically a better bicycle.

In terms of revenue generated overall Tesla easily beats everybody else. And Tesla just added the Model Y and they will likely be 1&2 on the market.

Of course only since 2020 as that is when the factory opened.

Re: SpaceX delivers 3rd batch of Starlink satellites in two weeks

#340

Post by heavyset_go »

biotinker wrote: post #173
heavyset_go wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Yeah, apparently just paint one rotor blade differently to make it stand out and birds will stay clear [1] The study you're citing was only studied 4 wind turbines, while the evidence does point towards this working, I wouldn't say that the existing evidence is conclusive. Also, the turbines with the darker blades still killed birds, just less bird than the turbines with standard blades.

Wind turbines don't kill enough birds to be more than a drop in the dead-bird bucket. It's a talking point used by people who were looking for reasons to be against wind turbines, but housecats kill four orders of magnitudes- not 4x, 10,000x- more birds each year. The percent of human-caused bird deaths due to wind turbines is smaller than the percent of Americans dying in airplane crashes each year, compared to all…

I agree, but I disagree about the claims that were made by the poster whose post I was responding to.
Post reply on HN