Prof. Sam LawlerAlso, in case anyone is counting, Starlink is now 63% of all active satellites.
2 out of ever 3 satellites up there now are owned by that awful billionaire. He effectively controls Low Earth Orbit. That should terrify everyone.
...just in case anyone needs more to be terrified of. Sorry.
You know what you can do? Not buy Starlink internet. (And if Starlink is your only option, write to them as a customer and tell them that you are concerned about their safety practices on the ground and in orbit, and they need to make fewer satellites with longer functional lifetimes)
Yvan@sundogplanets to add to the terror my first thought is: how hard would it be for him to have weaponised some % of that "fleet"? Is that feasible. Obviously the guy doesn't have the skills to do it himself, but I bet he has the mentality to try. It'd require some number of people working for him to be in on it and surely there aren't many who'd go along with something like that…
Have them launch some sort of tungsten rod perhaps? The old "rods of god" concept.
I may have read too much sci-fi.
ShadSterling@yvan @sundogplanets some are militarized, it’s not clear in what ways they’re weaponized: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceX_Starshield
I doubt they have large tungsten rods (too heavy), but they could easily have radio jammers and some sort of anti-satellite weaponry. Even the civilian model could navigate to block foreign launches, and to ensure safe windows for “our” launches; the military model might have more navigation capacity. I doubt we’ll know until the next war starts, and maybe not even then
@ShadSterling ah, great, so the bozo probably has some control of US government endorsed and tech equipped war satellites! Feeling even more terrified already.