Prof. Sam Lawler

There are currently 5,591 Starlink satellites in orbit, launched in the last 5 years https://planet4589.org/space/con/conlist.html

There are 5,595 known exoplanets https://exoplanetarchive.ipac.caltech.edu/ discovered in the last 30 years

Starlink is about to have more sats in orbit than known exoplanets, and with each launch, make it harder to do astronomy research

Imagine what astronomy (or any part of science) could do with the shittons of money that have been spent on occupying (and likely soon destroying) low earth orbit?

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Mar 13, 2024 at 4:43pmWeb
Show threadProf. Sam LawlerMar 19, 2024
They fucking did it. There are more Starlinks in orbit than known exoplanets. Guess I'm going to yell about that tomorrow in class.
Show thread🇺🇦 haxadecimal 🚫👑Mar 19, 2024
@sundogplanets
I think that I shall never see
A billboard lovely as a tree
Perhaps, unless the billboards fall
I'll never see a tree at all
– Ogden Nash
Show threadGLCMar 19, 2024

@brouhaha @sundogplanets

I was surprised by "Perhaps" as I read this with "Indeed" in an Ogden Nash collection about 65 years ago. But Quote Investigator explains that the original 1932 New Yorker publication used "Perhaps" and that Ogden Nash revised it to read "Indeed" in a 1940 collection.

So it is indeed "perhaps," at least in the original.

As the New Yorker for 1932 is still paywalled, thank goodness for Quote Investigator!

Show threadBob DavidsonMar 19, 2024

@sundogplanets

give’m hell!

Show threadDemocracy Dies in DumbassMar 19, 2024
@sundogplanets Musk needs to be charged with littering.
Show threadKris Sargent, MDMar 19, 2024
@sundogplanets Are all the bits of exploded rocket from last week going to burn up or are some of them contributing to Musk Detritus as well?
Show threadMy camera shoots fascistsMar 19, 2024

@sundogplanets

And once the Kessler cascade happens, we can send the billionaires on one-way joy rides into space, straight into the shrapnel field. Much more satisfying than guillotines and it would be pure justice.

Show threadEve, Go Listen to Dead Channel SkyMar 19, 2024
@sundogplanets Fuck's sake
Show threadJ.B. ShawMar 23, 2024
@sundogplanets Prof. Sam Lawler, The beaches in the sky consist of Space debris. Enjoy 😊
Show threadHelen GrahamMar 13, 2024
@sundogplanets I posted on a off grid site about non satalite internet options and I was really shocked how many people were very pro starlink and nobody at all had issues with the number of satalites or the impact on the night sky or likely issues when they all eventually end up fakling back to earth.And those are theoretically enviromentaly friendly ,ecologically aware people
Show threadProf. Sam LawlerMar 13, 2024

@Helengraham Most people have NO IDEA about all the problems. That's why I keep yelling about it!

(I'm also a rural internet user, so I totally understand why people are jumping on it. Rural internet sucks everywhere and Starlink is the fastest option for a lot of people... but I think more people would think twice if they had any idea how bad the pollution/space junk/light pollution issues are)

Show threadDitolMar 15, 2024
@sundogplanets @Helengraham If the internet access market in rural areas is big ebough to support satellite megaconstellations, how comes there is no proper over land service? It somehow doesn't seem to add up.
Show threadHelen GrahamMar 15, 2024
@ditol @sundogplanets .Its not really, the far north of Scotland is less densly populated than parts of the artic and sahara desert .Which means internet costs a fortune normally .Theres a lot of isolated houses and settlements most roads here are single track ,but a lot are narrow.So the road would need closing,cutting people off ,or at least meaning a very long detour that might be hours.The main roads have cables but houses are often a way from them,or too far from a" box "0r lines are taken
Show threadDitolMar 15, 2024
@Helengraham @sundogplanets If it is not feasible to lay cables for internet connection there, I assume that those houses have no other infrastructure either, like paved roads, electricity, running water etc. What a failed state... But in that case, what do they need internet access for if they can't power their computers? ;)
Still, if there are enough people in such conditions to sustain a satellite megaconstellation, it seems to be quite a considerable market. Why is nobody else exploiting it?
Show threadProf. Sam LawlerMar 15, 2024

@ditol @Helengraham This is how rural Saskatchewan got electricity decades ago: https://esask.uregina.ca/entry/rural_electrification.html

I would LOVE to see something like this for rural internet!

The Encyclopedia of Saskatchewan | Details

Show threadHelen GrahamMar 15, 2024
@sundogplanets @ditol We are lucky here all our electricty is from an old hydro dam ,but we are in a hamlet most people live in scattered around houses .Most houses around my last place used generators sometimes backed up with solar .Even my last house which was only about 1/4 mile across a road from a huge windfarm which rented its land from the houses owner .Yet they point blank refused to run an electrcity cable to it .
Show threadDan HooverMar 15, 2024
@sundogplanets @ditol @Helengraham Post WW2 there was a very strong set of cooperative and fairness ethics across business and all levels of government in Saskatchewan. Those people were very much in this together and trying to make life better for everyone.
I have read bits of widely varied legislation from that time and the thought and foresight incorporated to support those goals amazes me.
It's the spirit of cooperation that needs to be stirred to spark such action.
Show threadHelen GrahamMar 15, 2024
@ditol @sundogplanets .Its not essential to have mains power or water , they use wells and have assorted means oif generating off grid power ,villages have pavements but why would anyone else need them ? The flow country is the UKs last wilderness and internationally important as Europes largest and the worlds most diverse area of blanket bog..Scotland is not a failed state it ,its one of the world leaders in renewable energy ,has the best social care and cleanest rivers and air in the uk
Show threadDitolMar 15, 2024
@Helengraham @sundogplanets but do those remote villages and hamlets have landline telefone connection? If so, they could have VDSL broadband internet. This is standard across Germany (another nearly-failed-state, but only nearly :) ) and was crippling fiber infrastructure for decades because nobody really needed it.
Show threadkline 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿Mar 13, 2024

@sundogplanets the investment into Starlink is about $10B, which is the same as the JWST.

So we don't need to imagine, we've got a direct, contemporaneous comparison.

Show threadCompiMar 13, 2024
@sundogplanets You should watch this: https://youtu.be/2vuMzGhc1cg
DEBUNKING STARLINK

YouTube
Show threaddonald harvey kimberlin IIMar 14, 2024

@sundogplanets ground based visual astronomy is obsolete.

Better plan is to get more high earth orbit, lagrange, and equilateral telescopes out there to do good science without the handicaps of operating at the bottom of a gravity well through an ocean of atmospheric interferance.

Show threadIngmar RiegerMar 14, 2024
@errhead @sundogplanets For research that might be true. But then there is still the point that the view of the sky is destroyed for everyone on this world. It got so annoying now looking at the night sky and seeing all this „we make them darker“ objects!
Show threadRed_Shirt_no2Mar 14, 2024
@sundogplanets
Those Musk-mites,
those little Musk-mites;
Always the Musk-mites, no matter where you are!
Watchin’ as the Musk-mites gobble up the stars,
In North America, i-ca,
in North America
Show threadTito CiuroMar 15, 2024
@sundogplanets @dangillmor What I would give to see a real-life Gru putting up a giant magnet and collect all that junk…
Show threadJo - pièce de résistanceMar 19, 2024
@sundogplanets We are being trapped by the starlinks. The future will not see the stars, not escape the planet…we will not link to stars at all. It is a fence around the earth. Barring us from the universe. For someone supposedly so enamoured by Space, he sure is ruining it for everyone.
Show threadJ.H.NoyesMar 19, 2024
@JoBlakely
Yep. That asshole is going to lock us in.
@sundogplanets @CassandraZeroCovid