Updating my satellite numbers for another talk. There are now 7,306 Starlink satellites in orbit, a hundred more than 3 weeks ago when I last gave this talk. Fuck.
(Numbers from Jonathan McDowell's website: https://planet4589.org/space/con/conlist.html)
@mcourcel @sundogplanets China is sending some...and so on. It is very crowded up their already and none of us seem to get a say. :(
If they feel they need satellites for internet, it should be something like a UN, where countries get together and make one unified plan.
As will any nation with sattelte capabilities, since Starlink was crucial in the Ukraine war.
We'll get two things:
Massive signal interference in space to earth transmissions
Sooner rather than later satellites destroying each other on a cascading exponential scale without any hostile outside interference aka Kessler Syndrome
@sundogplanets
I thought this one was helpful to show people for a #spacedebris starter
https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Videos/2025/04/Space_Debris_Is_it_a_Crisis
HT @vattuvarg
While this effort is definitely sincere and will have an impact, I fear that we will have always major players like Musk, Bezos and Trump who don't give a hoot and get to waste public funding.
The US is currently a prime candidate of technological advancement in the hands of an idiocracy with short term gain over long term sustainability.
Starlink, as well as any competitor is bound to fail commercially. They can't out run the inevitable cascade before they make any commercial profit.
I doubt it. But they bank of rural America to be too cheap to invest in ground based solution and go for the shiny object in space.
+ They bank on more wars, where any ground based fixed solution is bound to get blown to smithereens and the military will be paying top dollar out of their nose for satellite coverage.
Which is why rather sooner than later military lobbies will insist on Starlink like national coverage in the control of the military with military focused capabilities.
China launching 600 sats this year, 14,000 ultimately, for its Qianfan (Thousand Sails) megacon.
Amazon *must* launch 1,600+ sats (3,200+ ultimately) by July of next year for its Project Kuiper. That's 1 rocket/week.
Europe's OneWeb is smaller, 600-ish, but now that EU no longer trusts Starlink, they are planning to expand.
The problem is about to get a lot worse.
Losses in profit will stop the commercial endeavors fast. They won't be able to replace their satellites fast enough and commercially viable in order to provide a cheap enough solution. Currently with public funding Starlink is not getting even, despite the income from the Ukraine war, which is currently at risk to be replaced by Eurel Sat by 70% and additional ground solutions to be 100% redundant and as soon as that is accomplished the prize bargaining starts. 1/2
Making Starlink even less profitable than it is currently.
( I wouldn't bank on Russia being able to fill the gap. Their economy is currently shot to hell. Musk wants Dollars not Yuans nor Rupie and certainly not Rubel.
Any rare earth deal will not do short tem either, which Musk needs with Tesla going down the shitter.)
2/2
There are no profits in starlink so far and there likely won't be in any future. Starlink is only viable due to government funding for NASA shuttling with SpaceX.
DEBUNKING STARLINK
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vuMzGhc1cg
so many? 😲
Prof. Sam Lawler
Martin
Carolyn
Silkester
Otte Homan - remember Geordie
ely
Mark Wyner Won’t Comply 
Eric the Cerise
Dr. Eric J. Fielding, PhD
Laura Erielle
Ariaflame
RejZoR
Mensch, Marina
Curious
Hektor 
Laukidh
scattershot
Peter Brown