Why bother with nuance when "Satellite constellation SLAMS astronomers" will get more clicks?

Time to move more Astronomy off-world. It is moving that way anyways. The moon would be a good place to set up an observatory. How many 7 m mirrors can you fit in a Starship?

People in this subreddit don't care. People in general don't care, there isn't enough money in astronomy. They're not involved with astronomy as a science and this place is mostly devoted to discussions that are closer to science fiction. You'll just get pithy remarks about how astronomy should be spaced based now that don't acknowledge that the vast majority of observational work comes from ground based observatories and for good reason. /r/astrophysics might give you more discussion with interested parties.

The answer is always more space flight, not less.

But satellite manufacturers probably should be compelled to make their products less shiny.

Didn’t Starlink redesign for that purpose once already?

Seems like only a nuisance for amateur astronomy just after dark or just before dawn. Agreed on the off world statement above.

There isn't a ton of nuance. First it started with Starlink. Everyone poo-pooed the concerns. Then Amazon and others announced constellations. Next governments will do it. In your life time, the impact on astronmical science will be significant and y'all will be,'"Didn't see that coming." Though more like you'll say "Yep, I predicted this."

Yeah nobody in this sub is interested in real research. It’s just a bunch of people who think that the end goal of humanity should be their favorite sci fi flick for some reason and that science is when you believe that anything is possible

This is so ridiculously melodramatic it belongs in a fiction sub. Very disapointed by Scientific American. In the meantime:

• Astronomers (serious ones) have the means to easily deal with this
• We arent going to stop LEO traffic forever, not for any reason. Humanity belongs in space.
• Starlink pays for Starship which will make space telescopes affordable, and ground astronomy obsolete for science purpose
• Millions of people having internet access is more important than what is realistically a minor short-term inconvenience to astronomers. Really, shame on you.

Couldn't constellations of satellites provide even better astrotelescopy than anything we can do on the ground?

Oh no! Now we can see all the TV screens they use to fake the sky 😡📺📺📺

Oh please, we have multiple telescopes in space already. There is no "existential threat" to astronomy. The hyperbole is all I am pointing out here, I don't disagree there will be significant impact.

How many important ground based observations have been made while space based satellites are looking in another direction? Rhetorical of course but still.

I'll say this one last time but I'm not going to beat a dead horse with more replies afterwards: The article title is clickbait garbage. Existential threat has an actual definition that is well understood, and it means threat of being 100% wiped out. This is clearly not the case, despite real concerns for terrestrial astronomy.

Instead of blatant click-bait magazine articles, here are the opinions on the subject directly from major professional observatories (a variation of a comment I made a while ago):

Below are four links to professional observatory opinions, with salient quotes. There will be effects, but they are in general minor, or there are mitigating actions being taken now, from satellite design modification to filtering software and timing.

• "The study finds that large telescopes like ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT) and ESO's upcoming Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) will be "moderately affected" by the constellations under development. The effect is more pronounced for long exposures (of about 1000 s), up to 3% of which could be ruined during twilight, the time between dawn and sunrise and between sunset and dusk. Shorter exposures would be less impacted, with fewer than 0.5% of observations of this type affected. Observations conducted at other times during the night would also be less affected, as the satellites would be in the shadow of the Earth and therefore not illuminated." [1]

• "Yet despite the increase in image streaks, the new report notes that ZTF science operations have not been strongly affected. Study co-author Tom Prince, the Ira S. Bowen Professor of Physics, Emeritus, at Caltech, says the paper shows a single streak affects less than one-tenth of a percent of the pixels in a ZTF image ... Prince says that software can be developed to help mitigate potential problems; for example, software could predict the locations of the Starlink satellites and thus help astronomers avoid scheduling an observation when one might be in the field of view. Software can also assess whether a passing satellite may have affected an astronomical observation, which would allow astronomers to mask or otherwise reduce the negative effects of the streaks." [2]

• "Most recently, the NRAO and GBO have been working directly with SpaceX to jointly analyze and minimize any potential impacts from their proposed Starlink system. These discussions have been fruitful and are providing valuable guidelines that could be considered by other such systems as well ... Among the many proposals under consideration are defining exclusions zones and other mitigations around the National Science Foundation’s current radio astronomy facilities and the planned future antenna locations for the Next Generation Very Large Array." [3]

• More recently, the National Science Foundation has published an astronomy coordination agreement, detailing procedures and designs aimed at minimizing interference and interaction between observatories and Starlink (both ways, as observatories use sky-pointed lasers to create artificial stars for focussing and the like). [4]

Meanwhile, professional and amateur astronomers both have tools now to deal with the existing satellites and (far worse) night flying aircraft.

Yes, it is absolutely ridiculous to be going on about "existential threats". It will be somewhat of a nuisance. Astronomy will still happen, data will still be gathered, they'll just have their algorithms remove a few satellites from the thousands of photos taken.

Ultimately this is a problem that indicates its own solution: There's so much stuff up there because launching stuff has got so cheap, comparatively. Since launching stuff is getting so easy we'll be able to pop up space telescopes easier, too.

Shut up scientists, there's profits to be made. And all those denying it either don't know how bad it will get or worse.

In the future constellations will be millions of satellites, not just a few thousand like there are now. Every country will want their own for security reasons.

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The moon is not the best choice for a telescope

https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2018/10/25/why-dont-we-put-a-space-telescope-on-the-moon/?sh=1538d7a6777f

Stupid question but maybe the satellites don’t need to have flashing lights to work? Or is it not about that

> blatant click-bait magazine article

This magazine is quite respected and has published articles by more than 150 Nobel Prize-winning scientists. It's as good as it gets.

There is a physical limit on how big scopes can be and we are reaching it. Also, other types of astronomy like radio are impacted by the transmissions.

At one time the vast majority of travel was by horse. Technology marches on.

Build telescopes on the moon idgaf global WiFi would be life changing in underdeveloped areas

And unchecked exploitation of LEO as a commercial (and otherwise) resource is an existential threat to LEO itself.

Kinda seems like the train's a rollin' and we're all just along for the ride at this point.

Good magazines can publish bad articles.

Acronyms, initialisms, abbreviations, contractions, and other phrases which expand to something larger, that I've seen in this thread:

|Fewer Letters|More Letters| |-------|---------|---| |ELT|Extremely Large Telescope, under construction in Chile| |ESO|European Southern Observatory, builders of the VLT and EELT| |JWST|James Webb infra-red Space Telescope| |LEO|Low Earth Orbit (180-2000km)| | |Law Enforcement Officer (most often mentioned during transport operations)| |VLT|Very Large Telescope, Chile|

|Jargon|Definition| |-------|---------|---| |Starlink|SpaceX's world-wide satellite broadband constellation|

^(6 acronyms in this thread; )^(the most compressed thread commented on today)^( has 16 acronyms.)
^([Thread #8636 for this sub, first seen 1st Mar 2023, 04:32]) ^[FAQ] ^([Full list]) ^[Contact] ^([Source code])

At a much higher cost, regardless of the advances in reusable rockets. Not to mention much harder to do maintence/upgrades/change instruments.

Arecibo Observatory didn't even receive enough funding to prevent it from colapsing. You can't replace the entirety of ground astronomy with space telescopes even if it got an order magnitude more funding, that also won't happen.

It's a pop-science magazine, not a journal.

Satellites don’t have flashing lights. They reflect sunlight

I love how Reddit doesn’t want the third world to have internet because a whopping 3% of telescope observations could be hindered.

Interesting article but it predates Starship anf Starlink. The data transfer issues can be overcome with a Starlink-like constellation. The costs of lunar landings will be mitigated by the relative low cost of Starship. Not sure about moonquakes. The big advantage I see on the moon is the cost of construction. Maybe it would be better to move to a Lagrange point but all that spacewalking would be an issue. Basically you need to build a space station to support the construction and maintenance. As for location, I imagine the poles would be best. Possibly in the shadow of a crater rim so the tempature is always very cold.

The needs of the many out way the needs of the few

Yes I'm sure a rocket will make Earth-based astronomy completely irrelevant. It's not like building things here is cheaper or something.

>Didn’t Starlink redesign for that purpose once already

Brightness mitigation has generally been more of an ongoing process than a one-off, though they've just done a major revision that launched only yesterday. SpaceX are all about design iteration, and Starlink is no exception to that rule.

The details of their previous efforts can be found in this document, and the details for the new design can be found on page 3 of this document.

I bet if you took their current internet access away and told them that Starlink was their only option for getting back online a lot of people would start changing their minds real quick.

First, strawman. Next, James Webb - they didn't build it to see how much money they could burn. Finally, Starship changes a lot of costs. 100 tons to the moon for maybe $2b or maybe a lot less is a big change in the cost calculation.

That was then. The current Scientific American doesn't hold a candle to its former self. IMO the decline started when they ceased publishing substantial scientific projects and experiments such as these in their Amateur Scientist column. So no, it isn't now "as good as it gets."

Regardless, the direct statements from professional observatories carry more weight, and that SciAm title is unquestionably click-bait.

It's certainly not an existential threat for astronomy, but in 50+ years might pose an actual concern for ground based based telescopes and an annoyance for amateur astronomers.

Yeah 100 big satellites would be a lot cleaner than 10,000 small ones

Kind of cluttery don't ya think?

Its swirling around an IFLScience style drain.

It really is past its best.

Thanks for this rational reply. Please continue posting, we need more reasonable information when faced with sensationalist articles.

Jwst isn't a replacement for ELTs though, good luck putting METIS in orbit

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Problem there is 100 big satellites would have to be at much higher altitudes for global visibility, and that introduces significant latency. Further, at higher altitudes, there's no natural meaningful decay of the orbits in the event of satellite failure.

>Starlink pays for Starship which will make space telescopes affordable, and ground astronomy obsolete for science purpose

No. Launch costs are not what makes space telescopes expensive, and Starship won't make it possible to build space telescopes anywhere near the size of current and near-future ground-based telescopes. Space telescopes complement ground-based observatories, but they won't replace them anytime soon.

You could at least cull us some new clickbait rather than recycle an article from 2022. Weak stream.

This is borderline Misinformation. You are attempting to create an impression that there is no problem, and that everything has been or will be mitigated. Some choice quotes, with sources:

From that totally disreputable, clickbait publication, Science.org:

> The Rubin Observatory, with an 8.4-meter mirror that will take pictures of the sky the size of 40 full Moons in 30-second exposures, "is the perfect machine for running into these satellites," Tyson says.

> He and his team conducted simulations that suggested the track of a satellite image across their camera would saturate each camera pixel as it passes, and cause leakage into neighboring ones. The resulting artifacts "cannot be removed in software. We have failed in doing that," Tyson says. The team looked at altering schedules to avoid satellite trails, but with such a wide field of view, avoiding thousands of satellites would end up as "a wild goose chase," he says.

Speaking of the Rubin Observatory:

> Simulations of the LSST observing cadence and the full 42,000 SpaceX satellite constellation show that as many as 30% of all LSST images would contain at least one satellite streak. With constellations of 400,000 LEOsats, most images will have very bright streaks.

> Due to its rapid cadence, LSST cannot usefully avoid tens of thousands of LEOsats.

> Darkening satellites to 7th magnitude would simplify removal of some artifacts in LSST images, but there is no guarantee most of the satellites will be limited in brightness to fainter than 7th magnitude.

> The bright main satellite trail would still be present, potentially creating bogus alerts and systematics at low surface brightness. This is a challenge for science data analysis, adding significant effort and potentially limiting discovery of the unexpected.

> However there is a larger challenge: because of the unprecedented large samples, LSST science will be limited by systematics rather than sample variance (area incompleteness). Of concern are various systematic effects that do not simply scale with the number of lost pixels—in other words, the residuals from these mitigation strategies on the science cases for which LSST was designed. For example, the LSST ability to detect asteroids approaching from directions interior to the Earth's orbit may be severely impacted because those directions are visible only during twilight when LEO satellites are brightest—nearly every LSST image taken at this time would be affected by at least one satellite trail. [My emphasis added]

TLDR: I could provide further quotes, especially about the harm to radio astronomy, but the point here is that software can't remove the streak when the CCD has been saturated - that would be like dumping thousands of identical lemons into a bin that initially contains only one or two, shaking the bin vigorously, and then trying to identify the original occupants. This isn't about amateur astrophotography - this is about trying to identify transient phenomena that are captured in single exposures. No software in the world can undo the harm if hardware and physics don't allow for it.

You speak of misinformation, then misrepresent what I wrote with this:

> You are attempting to create an impression that there is no problem, and that everything has been or will be mitigated. [emphasis added]

In fact I wrote:

> There will be effects, but they are in general minor, or there are mitigating actions being taken now ... [emphasis added]

I neither wrote nor implied "no problem" and "everything has been or will be mitigated." Those are your words. Further, I provide the links for everyone to read the full releases in context, in an explicit attempt to avoid the very sin you seem to imply I'm committing.

Regardless, constellations are here now. Their worth has been proven, Starlink at least and professional observatories are working together to share the sky, and astronomy is not facing an existential threat, per that click-bait headline.

I'll leave it to the alert reader to actually read the quotes we both provided. The only thing I will say to you about your "in general minor" harms that have no potential for mitigation (and I have provided a source for that statement already):

If observatories are literally unable to carry out part or all the mission objectives for which they are designed (like searching for Atira-type asteroids, which must be searched for at twilight because they orbit the Sun closer than Earth does), you have an interesting definition of the word "minor".

EDITED TO ADD: This comment has been up for hours and stands at a mere minus-2. I'm disappointed in you Musk worshippers, you're off your game here. I suppose I could keep fielding clueless anti-science comments like dern_the_hermit's below all day, but I'm done with this thread. For people that actually want to understand science and the problems that satellite swarms present, please remember that observatories and photometers are not just taking one-off snapshots - they're often taking data over a certain period of time to build up a light curve (a graph of change in brightness versus time), to give just one example. Tearing out gaps in a curve means loss of data that can be irretrievable, especially when an object is doing something unexpected. You can't mathematically reconstruct something that is non-repeatable!

Ah, people with no vision. Thanks to low gravity and free real estate, you could build on the moon a bigger and better telescope than anything possible on earth. All you need to low launch costs.

People like you have no idea how much observations are done on the ground. The vast majority of astronomy research depends on ground telescopes. Even the big papers that use data from Hubble or JWST often depend on ground-based auxiliary data. It's completely nonviable to change all of astronomy to space. Even if the launch cost were zero, space telescopes are still orders of magnitude more expensive than ground-based ones. And we are still decades or centuries away from being able to build a 30-meter space telescope that would rival the resolution of the ELTs currently under construction.

Satellite constellations are a huge issue and can completely kill ground-based astronomy if the number of constellations continues its exponential grow.

"Astronomers (serious ones) have the means to easily deal with this"

So far astronomers have the means to deal with it, but what about in 10-20 years from now when the number of satellites is 100 times greater? You will not be able to take a single long exposure without these satellites appearing. It will make astronomy observation from the ground completely unpractical.

"We arent going to stop LEO traffic forever, not for any reason. Humanity belongs in space."

There is a big difference between typical LEO satellites and these mega constellations. The later are increasing the number of LEO objects at a rate unlike anything seen previously. The problem is specifically satellite constellations, NOT general LEO traffic.

"Starlink pays for Starship which will make space telescopes affordable, and ground astronomy obsolete for science purpose"

Even if the launch cost were zero, it would still be orders of magnitude more expensive to build and operate space telescopes. Astronomy with only space telescopes would only be possible if we had military-level funding for science. And there are still types of telescope which we cannot replicate in space, such as the 30-40 meter ELTs currently under construction. While building giant telescopes on the moon seems like a nice solution, it is still at least 50-100 years away and will always have an extreme cost associated with it.

"Millions of people having internet access is more important than what is realistically a minor short-term inconvenience to astronomers. Really, shame on you."

There are other ways to bring internet to everyone. And satellites constellations are not a "minor inconvenience", they have the potential to completely kill astronomical observation from the ground. It's not an exaggeration when astronomers say this. Astronomers know the observations they deal with. You should listen to what the experts say instead of choosing to believe what you find more comforting. Anyone that cares about the progress of science should be alarmed by the current trends of these mega constellations.

People here think that astronomy is just the pretty pictures that NASA releases from Hubble or the JWST. They have no idea how astronomy research works and choose to believe what they think is most comforting instead of listening to the experts who know what they are talking about.

Can all this stuff interfere on Nasas abillitys to spot near earth objects? Like asteroids ?

It's more like 10 years if the current trend continues. Satellites constellations are growing at an exponential rate. It is an existential threat to astronomy because almost all astronomy observations are made from the ground and they will all be affected by the satellites trails. We will have less effective telescope time available, we will need more exposure times to compensate from the satellites trails (when it is possible to compensate them), which will lead to less astronomical research being done, less career astronomers, basically the stagnation of astronomy.

You are cherry picking data to seem like there is no problem. From the same article 1 you link, it says:

"The study also finds that the greatest impact could be on wide-field surveys, in particular those done with large telescopes. For example, up to 30% to 50% of exposures with the US National Science Foundation's Vera C. Rubin Observatory (not an ESO facility) would be "severely affected”, depending on the time of year, the time of night, and the simplifying assumptions of the study. Mitigation techniques that could be applied on ESO telescopes would not work for this observatory although other strategies are being actively explored."

"The ESO study uses simplifications and assumptions to obtain conservative estimates of the effects, which may be smaller in reality than calculated in the paper."

"Many of the parameters characterising satellite constellations, including the total number of satellites, are changing on a frequent basis. The study assumes 26,000 constellation satellites in total will be orbiting the Earth, but this number could be higher. "

From article 2 you link:

"In the future, the scientists expect that nearly all of the ZTF images taken during twilight will contain at least one streak, especially after the Starlink constellation reaches 10,000 satellites, a goal SpaceX hopes to reach by 2027.

"We don't expect Starlink satellites to affect non-twilight images, but if the satellite constellation of other companies goes into higher orbits, this could cause problems for non-twilight observations," Mróz says. "

"The study authors also note their study is specific to ZTF. Like ZTF, the upcoming Vera C. Rubin Observatory, under construction in Chile, will also survey the sky nightly, but due to its more sensitive imager, astronomers predict that it may be more negatively affected by satellite streaks than ZTF."

Articles 3 and 4 describe mitigation strategies that SpaceX is looking into. But crucially, it ignores that in the future dozens of companies, from all over the world, will want to launch satellites constellations. It's useless if SpaceX follows all mitigation procedures to avoid contaminating astronomical observations, but a random company from China decides that this is not important and launches the satellites anyway. The number of satellites is growing at an exponential rate, and in 10-20 years we will have possibly ten or a hundred times more satellites than SpaceX is currently planing.

The vast majority of astronomy research is made using ground-based telescopes. It's completely illusory to think that we could simply launch everything into space.

Yes, the Rubin telescope is more sensitive. Nevertheless, in general, the numbers I extracted apply. Meanwhile, regarding that telescope, they go on to say:

> ... depending on the time of year, the time of night, and the simplifying assumptions of the study. Mitigation techniques that could be applied on ESO telescopes would not work for this observatory although other strategies are being actively explored." [Emphasis added]

Regarding other constellations, yes, their higher orbits will be more of an issue. One of the good side effects of Starlink's low orbits is the short period of twilight illumination.

But again, astronomy is in no way experiencing an "existential threat." It's a ridiculous exaggeration. There will be effects. There are and will be workarounds and mitigations. And the sky will be shared.

Correct, astronomy will cease to exist. See how dumb that sounds?

People like you...huh. That is a very loaded phrase. What kind of people are "like" me.

Space telescopes are currently orders of magnitude more expensive. Where will they be in 30 years?

Nobody suggested to move all of astronomy to space (strawman alert). But if the article is right maybe a huge chunk has to.

We are centuries away from any given technology? And you get these dates how?

Why are you so keen to downplay the effects of these satellites constellations? Astronomers are trying so hard to warm the public but people simply choose to ignore them and choose to believe that it's not really a problem and that we will easily mitigate the satellites. It reminds me of the climate change debate, where scientists tried for decades to warm the public of this danger, but people simply ignored them, and now that it is becoming mainstream to accept climate change it is too late. Of course satellites constellations are not at the same level of threat as climate change, but the same logic applies. In fact, I suspect there is a great care of astronomy institutions and the writers of these articles you linked to seem "moderate" on this issue, otherwise people would immediately think they are crazy and would promptly ignore the issue. Exactly like what happens with climate change. So stop choosing to believe that everything is okay when it isn't. Satellites constellations are a huge deal and anyone that cares about science should be alarmed by them.

Fear not. Our Chinese friends will provide an associate for each Space-X satellite that will ensure that each is well behaved and causes no problems. Or they will be obliterated, and there will be many more objects to track.

"People like you...huh. That is a very loaded phrase. What kind of people are "like" me."

People that superficially like science, but in reality have no idea how it actually works behind the scenes. They only like to see the latest pictures and results from Hubble or JWST. They are a fan of Elon Musk and SpaceX just because they think it's cool. I am not saying you are like this, but this is the impression I get from these people that are blindly in favor of satellites constellations.

"Space telescopes are currently orders of magnitude more expensive. Where will they be in 30 years?"

Yes. Space materials are necessarily more expensive than material you can use on the ground. They need to survive much harsher conditions, under no maintenance, with limited possibilities to troubleshoot problems, and have stringent constraints on size and weight. Space telescopes will always be much more expensive than ground based telescopes.

"Nobody suggested to move all of astronomy to space (strawman alert). But if the article is right maybe a huge chunk has to."

"People" say all the time that we need to move astronomy to space. It doesn't matter if they mean 100% of telescopes, or 90%. The effect is the same, they are proposing a solution that is completely non viable.

"We are centuries away from any given technology? And you get these dates how?"

It took NASA 20 years to develop JWST. At a cost of 10 billion dollars. And this is a 6-meter diameter telescope. The next generation flagship space observatory is planned to be a 6 to 10-meter telescope that will launch in the mid 2040s at a cost similar to JWST. To rival the resolution capabilities of ground-based telescopes, we would need to build a 30-meter space telescope. Thinking that we are on the brink of achieving this is completely illusory.

Don't conflate my comments with political denial. The point of my responses:

• the sky is not falling (if you'll pardon the pun). Astronomers - professional and amateur (I count myself among the latter) - continue to operate successfully, what with the tools that are available now to ameliorate the effects of yet higher flying satellites (illuminated for longer periods) and aircraft (illuminated at all hours of the night).

• Truly global high speed, low latency internet has huge benefits on society, from providing access to remote communities, to assisting those defending their lands. Even without considering the impossibility of global mobile operation otherwise, there's no other kind of system capable of such ubiquitous coverage.

• a longer term/fuzzier point - beyond terrestrial mitigations, space based observatories are and will be supplementing ground-based telescopes. The technologies that make constellations cost effective will no doubt feed into making more space-borne instruments feasible.

I've seen it written that Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, etc don't own the sky, and this is certainly true. However, neither do astronomers. Constellations are beyond the point of proving their dramatic worth, so they're here regardless of opinion. Observatories and constellation operators will work together and cooperate because there's no alternative.

If ground-based telescope are made unusable, astronomy will stagnate and will pretty much stop to exist. No one will be able to pursue a carer in astronomy when no research projects are possible. Even if space telescopes still exist and a fraction of ground-based telescopes are still usable, astronomy will not be sustainable. Astronomers are not doing science just for fun, they need money to survive and if astronomy cant provide this, they will be forced to move to another field.

Sounds excessive. You can see no future where observations from the ground can continue?

Let's meet in 10 years and see how many of your pessimistic predictions came true. I think you underestimate how astute some scientists can be.

You have absolutely no idea who I am. Starlink is saving lives in Ukraine, providing high speed internet to native reservations in Canada, hooking up schools in Africa to the internet and provides a viable method for my local sugar shack to get faster than dialup speeds. So yeah, I am a fan. Constellations are going to happen so get over it. Your dislike of SpaceX seems to be motivated by Reddit Cool. SpaceX is taking humans to the moon for half the bid of their nearest competitor and are pushing spaceflight faster than any time since 1970. Starship has a 9 m diameter and can carry a 7 m mirror without the origami required for JW. The astronomy world is already looking at it. Lower cost to orbit and beyond will drop the price of space based instruments by an order of magnitude as mass stops being the constraining factor. There is zero chance it will take centuries to do anything short of FTL flight (which is probably impossible). In the last 120 years we moved from gliders to Artemis. It will not take centuries to take the next steps.

Not to mention the advance of machine learning and AI correction and image composition.

I think we'll discover much like we did with broadcasting that technology will allow us to do much more starting with much less.

We may have less sky time, sure, but we'll have better ability to make sense of what we do see

A lot more than 10 years. Well need probably a million satellites at least in LEO for amateur astronomy to actually be affected

How do we create an existential threat to Astrology next?

"Starlink is saving lives in Ukraine, providing high speed internet to native reservations in Canada, hooking up schools in Africa to the internet and provides a viable method for my local sugar shack to get faster than dialup speeds."

Except for the first one, all of this can be done with fiber networks. Satellite internet should only be used for emergencies and extremely remote locations, it should be the exception rather than the norm.

"Your dislike of SpaceX seems to be motivated by Reddit Cool."

I dislike only Starlink, and that's because it is interfering with astronomical observations. I applaud SpaceX's efforts with reusable rockets, Starship, the dragon capsule.

"Starship has a 9 m diameter and can carry a 7 m mirror without the origami required for JW. The astronomy world is already looking at it."

Starship is still unproven. When (or if) it is operational, it will certainly be very useful to launch cheaper space telescopes, but this does not mean in any way that space telescopes will make ground-based observatories obsolete. Ground telescopes will always be cheaper and more convenient to operate and maintain.

And a 7m space mirror is not enough when ground telescopes are already at 30-40 meters. So "space origami" will still be necessary if we want to rival the resolution of ground-based telescopes.

"In the last 120 years we moved from gliders to Artemis. It will not take centuries to take the next steps."

And in the last 50 years we moved from crewed missions to the Moon to just now returning to crewed missions to the Moon. For the last 50 years a Mars crewed mission has always been just "20 years away". Progress is very slow with the level of funding we are seeing.

You obviously have never been outside an urban area. Nobody will be running fiberoptic cable into the Canadian hinterland. Or back country Africa. That is pure nonsense. It costs thousands for farmers to hook up the last mile. How much to hook up the last 500 miles? All of Canada outside the cities is extremely remote. I have driven much of it.

It's already affected.

Current satellite levels have raised natural background brightness by 10% in dark areas that are normally free of artificial light pollution:

https://www.universetoday.com/150759/satellites-have-brightened-the-skies-by-about-10-across-the-entire-planet/

Just wait until all this over-commercialization of space results in 100x the number of satellites, as well as orbiting billboards.

> People here

People here are paid by Elon Musk to astroturf and simp for the commercialization of space.

Billionaires get to exploit a natural resource, and it's spun as if it's some great humanitarian effort for the third world.

I promise the people here using 3rd world internet access as an excuse to justify this don't give a single shit about 3rd world people or their internet access. They are paid to be here to propagandize the commercialization and exploitation of space for the benefit of billionaires.

They also reflect light from Earth and natural sky glow from the atmosphere, back down. This is why LEO satellites are still readily visible through telescopes or long exposure imaging despite being in the Earth's shadow.

This sub crawls with people who literally have never looked through a telescope in their life saying "ThEy ArE iNvIsIbLe BeCaUsE sHaDoW!". It's simply not true. They are most definitely visible. Not necessarily always naked-eye visible, but they don't have to be for swarms of them to be contributing to light pollution levels.

It doesn’t.. but even if it did, what’s more important, astronomy or global communications and internet access?

> Why are you so keen to downplay the effects of these satellites constellations

Why are YOU so keen on exaggerating the effects? An "existential threat" means astronomy cannot happen, not "every third ultra-wide image loses a few pixels to a satellite".

It's just bonkers to suggest observatories can't observe because a portion of some pictures is lost.

What happens when the actual object you're trying to observe is blotted out with an adjacent satellite streak? Vera Rubin will be taking short exposures - lots of them. Wide-field surveys need the sky to be open because, you know, they're looking for unknown sources, or need to see if known sources are doing unexpected things. Why is that difficult to understand?

> What happens when the actual object you're trying to observe is blotted out with an adjacent satellite streak

Take another picture. Pictures are cheap.

Sure, chuckles, loss of data is no big deal. Especially when you know ahead of time that the transient object/behaviour you're looking for means that the light source has no guarantee of being at the same brightness or position next exposure.

Musk fanatics are forever betraying their ignorance of science. Bye-bye, troll.

Insults are completely inappropriate.

> loss of data is no big deal

It's not necessarily an existential threat, is the point. Let's stayed focused and on-topic here.

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> Articles 3 and 4 describe mitigation strategies that SpaceX is looking into. But crucially, it ignores that in the future dozens of companies, from all over the world, will want to launch satellites constellations. It's useless if SpaceX follows all mitigation procedures to avoid contaminating astronomical observations, but a random company from China decides that this is not important and launches the satellites anyway. The number of satellites is growing at an exponential rate, and in 10-20 years we will have possibly ten or a hundred times more satellites than SpaceX is currently planing.

This is really the crucial thing here. People can argue all they want about Starlink’s potential impact and mitigation strategies etc. But Starlink is going to be one of potentially dozens of similar services in the next few decades. There are already many being worked on. Really strict standards need to be set.