Starlink, good or bad?

[Speedbird-1]

https://youtu.be/ihVuz8uM1qU

Fascinating.
Given, Musk's plans to have 42,000 'communication satellites circling our planet, should we be concerned, or is it a good thing?

[enjoythemusic]

They are designed to burn up upon re-entry to Earth's atmosphere. So there is an 'exit' strategy at end-of-life for each one. Sadly, many other items in space are essentially 'junk' (or soon to be) and they pose a problem long-term due to no 'exit strategy' imho.

[espanol]

It’s an interesting topic indeed.

The use case for SL is incredible, especially in countries that lack telecommunications infrastructure. We often forget a good percentage of the world still has no access to information via the internet. Even some of those that do, especially in developing countries, are subject to nationalized internet, which controls visibility. SL is a great way to solve those two critical issues.

[Zartan]

Starlink is a bane for astronomer’s. For people in the middle of no where (in the billions) it’s gonna give them the Internet, which rocks as long as they can pay for it.
But starlink’s killer strategy has always been economy of scale. Send up one object into space and it’s expensive, send up 50,000 and now you’ve got a space transportation agency, ready to take whatever you want up there too, cheap. Ingenious really.

[Jackie Daytona]

Not sure I’m pro starlink. I think we have enough stuff up there.

Weirdly it sort of put me in a mental debate of some sort about how our skies are sort of the Wild West as there’s no real regulation on any private companies that I’m aware of.

Funny enough it just went on let my house about an hour ago. Had to call the kids out to see it.

[enjoythemusic]

Setting the wayback machine to the 1990s, Bill Gates and others already had the idea to have global multi-sat internet.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teledesic

Obviously, time and tech (and ways to launch these into space) have moved forward and it is now possible. Imho the internet has become so intertwined with modern society that it is now a major part of keeping economies and political war efforts (drones, etc) humming along. Sat web is an excellent solution and brings data to places that are impossible-ish to do via hardline, line-of-sight techniques, or via microwave. Of course sat web also benefits cruise ships, commercial aircraft, grandma and grandpa in the motorhome, etc.

100% agree there's a lot of 'junk' up in space, and that's another subject well worth discussing. As i already said, Elon has ensured his Starlink sats have a proper end-life.

[joeychitwood]

Originally Posted by Zartan

Starlink is a bane for astronomer’s. For people in the middle of no where (in the billions) it’s gonna give them the Internet, which rocks as long as they can pay for it.
But starlink’s killer strategy has always been economy of scale. Send up one object into space and it’s expensive, send up 50,000 and now you’ve got a space transportation agency, ready to take whatever you want up there too, cheap. Ingenious really.

I have two telescopes and the Starlink satellites are like mosquitos flying around the sky at night. Annoying and ever present. When I try to take wide angle photos of the Milky Way, my images are filled with trails of satellites. Supposedly there is a move to decrease the reflectiveness of the satellites. I’ve also watched strings of just released satellites flying like a long train across the sky.

[OG1982]

It’s great as a communication product.

But personally, I don’t trust Musk one bit.


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[joeychitwood]

The thought I can never get out of my mind is “42,000 low-orbit satellites circling the Earth sent there by the guy who bought and manages Twitter. What could go wrong?”

[Boothroyd]

Other countries' militaries are considering putting up similar systems they can control directly. Seems like is it going to get a lot more crowded up there soon.

[Blansky]

Originally Posted by joeychitwood

The thought I can never get out of my mind is “42,000 low-orbit satellites circling the Earth sent there by the guy who bought and manages Twitter. What could go wrong?”

Hope their orbits are doing better than their self driving cars.

[Zartan]

Originally Posted by joeychitwood

I have two telescopes and the Starlink satellites are like mosquitos flying around the sky at night. Annoying and ever present. When I try to take wide angle photos of the Milky Way, my images are filled with trails of satellites. Supposedly there is a move to decrease the reflectiveness of the satellites. I’ve also watched strings of just released satellites flying like a long train across the sky.

Pixinsight gets rid of those pesky trails easily.

[superdog]

Undecided.

But I don’t trust the man.

[77T]

I don’t know about the value of Starlink’s “exit strategy”. I do think the goal is to leapfrog countries who don’t (or can’t) build out Comms for their citizens.

On Space - Earthlings have myopic strategies regarding space environ’s as well as our Moon. We leave sh!t wherever we wish. The Ring Nebulaens must be shaking their…um, well…whatever they think with.

My LeGrande opinion is of no importance - I don’t have an answer. It is intuitively obvious there are competing commercial interests…

Satellites begin to burn up as their orbits decay in the part of Earth's atmosphere known as the "thermosphere." About 80 kilometers (50 miles) above the Earth's surface. The very big ones don’t completely sacrifice their bulk.

LEOs skip for a while and eventually re-enter the denser layers of the atmosphere and burn across various strata during re-entry.

Each Starlink weighs-in at 560lbs. (about half being fuel)

280lbs x 40,000 units, it’ll contribute 11,200,000lbs of bad stuff over the years (not all at once) into the upper reaches of earth’s atmosphere.

So, they will be sprinkling debris at a rate you’d disagree with if they wanted to dump it into the ocean. We have zero idea of the impact of 2,3, or more players wanting to do the same.

On the regulatory side, space boundaries are a “greenfield”. The same is true on the high seas beyond sovereign economic zone boundaries.

Commercialization of space started in the 1960’s with Comm satellites like Telstar1, then IBM/MCI SBS, and so forth. The cost justification was based on a cost avoidance model - that is, the prohibitive cost of doing the same Comms terrestrially.

For Telstar it avoided costly widespread microwave relay. For IBM/MCI SBS it avoided costly widespread buried fiber optic cables to every business. And Microsoft’s proposed Teledesic was aimed at spurring the upgrade of AMP based cellular data networks to 2/3G digital.

But in none of those cases was the cost of decommissioning included.

Like coastal garbage disposal strategy in the late 19th thru mid 20th centuries, the following generations were given the duty of care.

I’m taking no sides - just saying Starlink will eventually be judged by wiser minds.


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[Dirt]

Originally Posted by Boothroyd

Other countries' militaries are considering putting up similar systems they can control directly. Seems like is it going to get a lot more crowded up there soon.

True enough.
I wonder how well all of it will be managed.
The military aspect of it is troublesome, also what governments will be tempted to do with them when they can see a political avantage and think up new ways to do things to people who would otherwise be normal and going about their business and not causing any harm.

Maybe it's just the inner conspiracy theorist lurking within, but an old fellow I knew once said "things always change, not necessarily for the better".
It resonates with me and I pray for good people to be able to influence things sufficiently