SolidTuxOct 23
Prof. Sam Lawler

Good morning. Starlink has now launched more than TEN THOUSAND satellites into orbit. Nearly 1400 have already been burned up in the atmosphere so far.

Here's a "lovely" image from my Kuiper Belt discovery program with dozens of satellite streaks in a 3 hour stacked exposure from CFHT. This was from 2022, when there were thousands fewer satellites... This is dumb.

Image credit: P. Cowan/W. Fraser/S. Lawler/CLASSY Survey Team

(The small streaks that are similar lengths are actually asteroids!)

Oct 21 at 2:01pmWeb
Show threadProf. Sam LawlerOct 21
Usually my "good morning" posts are calm farm scenes. So...here's some chill to make up for starting the morning with bad stuff.
Show threadYosoOct 21
@sundogplanets wow
Show threadTomasz OryńskiOct 21

@sundogplanets if I might shamelessly plug my podcast for all the Polish language readers of this, I had a guest on it, an astronomer from UWr, in which we discuss - amongst other topics - why this is so bad.

TL;DR: billionaires rack profits, you and me are footing the bill for the losses (as this impacts quality of science we can get for our money).

https://lewackiepitolenie.buzzsprout.com/1802226/episodes/9014493-lewackie-pitolenie-o-miliarderach-w-kosmosie-gosc-dr-dawid-mozdzierski

Lewackie Pitolenie o miliarderach w kosmosie (Gość: dr Dawid Moździerski) - Lewackie Pitolenie

 Jak wiecie niedawno miliarderzy polecieli w kosmos. Niestety tylko dwaj i już są z powrotem, ale mimo tego warto się zastanowić, czy ludzkość będzie miała z tego jakiś pożytek. Do rozmowy na ten temat Tomek zaprosił eksperta od kosmosu - dok...

Buzzsprout
Show threadUtopiah (Fabien Benetou)Oct 21

@sundogplanets who cares about stars and human knowledge if some people get slightly faster Internet and the richest man on Earth can get few billions more? Come on, don't you want to embrace progress? /$

(so terribly sad...😭 )

Show threadFediThing Oct 21

@utopiah @sundogplanets

Apparently it's not even faster internet, most places that use it would do much better with physical cables/fibres. The satellites are mainly there just to make Musk richer and more powerful.

Show threadUtopiah (Fabien Benetou)Oct 22

@FediThing @sundogplanets fair enough and yes I believe when there is possibility of laying down a wire, it will be more faster, more reliable, lower latency... and even more importantly without such an asymmetry of power.

Even the guy next door can (yes with some effort and expertise, e.g. https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2021/01/jared-mauch-didnt-have-good-broadband-so-he-built-his-own-fiber-isp/ but there are many more examples) lay down a fiber optic cable.

A fleet of satellites though that's different. It is by design, especially commercially, something that an individual must delegate their power to an institution.

So yes IMHO in addition to such terrible negative externalities it is by design a project to remove power to individuals rather than democratize access to knowledge.

TL;DR: yep, sucks.

Jared Mauch didn’t have good broadband—so he built his own fiber ISP

“I had to start a telephone company to get [high-speed] Internet access.”…

Ars Technica
Show threadKim Possible Oct 21
@sundogplanets Can a tipping point yet be calculated, or are there too many variables?
Show threadProf. Sam LawlerOct 21

@kimlockhartga Which tipping point? Kessler Syndrome? Loss of data? Ozone depletion? Planes getting hit by space junk? ha ha...

There are so many...

Show threadKim Possible Oct 21
@sundogplanets You're right. I had not thought through all of the potential consequences.
Show threadcounterintuitOct 21
@sundogplanets Surveillance, plain and simple.
Show threadAskPippa🇨🇦Oct 21
@sundogplanets I guess this could put a damper on spotting (and having some warning) about some big celestial object that might be heading toward Earth.
Show threadToot Ωncommon - SHUT 🇺🇸 DOWNOct 21
@sundogplanets Maybe all the Starlink debris will eventually take out all the space mirrors and then we’d get a brilliant free artificial fireworks show every night from what falls back for a few decades until the sky clears again.
Show threadAoi_X_KaizakiOct 21
@sundogplanets Space! Is that my planet somewhere? A place out there I can live and feel happy and content?
Show threadTiffanyNBastowOct 21
@sundogplanets Good morning. That image is both amazing and sad, the satellite streaks really show how badly our night sky is being cluttered. Ten thousand launches and already so many burn-ups… it’s frustrating to see science and discovery interrupted like this. We deserve a cleaner sky.
Show threadxs4me2Oct 21

@sundogplanets

Space garbage…

Show threadKelOct 21
@sundogplanets they keep fucking up the astro processor too. most of the stuff i get from them somehow breaks the scanning and sometimes also the download panel and then i have to go into the basement to reboot them
Show threadKelOct 21
@sundogplanets the panels make the loudest most awful buzzing noise when that happens too. its awful. i can hear it from the basement
Show threadMarcin „czach” TrzaskaOct 21
@sundogplanets 🤦‍♂️
Show threadSassinake! ᑐ ∪ ∩ ⊂Oct 21

@sundogplanets

Trapped in our spiders' webs

Show threadProf. Sam LawlerOct 21
@Sassinake Oooo I like that! (Also hate it!)