I presented at the local planetary journal club this morning about the 3 articles I co-authored for The Conversation in the past weeks about the effects that one million satellites would have on the night sky, the atmosphere, and the orbital environment (spoiler alert: all very very bad)
And one on light pollution that I thought would get published today but might not be out until after the weekend.
The third article in this (horrible) series of articles I've co-authored is now out. https://theconversation.com/a-million-new-spacex-satellites-will-destroy-the-night-sky-for-everyone-on-earth-277938
A million satellites of the size required for "AI data centers" would mean that everyone in the world would have more visible satellites than stars for most of the night and most of the year.
But don't worry, we'll be in Kessler Syndrome WAY before we get to a million satellites!
RE: https://mastodon.social/@sundogplanets/116152057176915428
I've got a thread here where I more carefully explain the prediction plot, and post a bunch of sky predictions for many latitudes around the world, just to make the point of how incredibly stupid the idea of a million satellites is.
@EricFielding @hllizi @sundogplanets
The figure also imagines magically launching 5,000 Starships per year from a launch pad that keeps having to be rebuilt.
This scam keeps getting more absurd.
Wasn't there something about a need to increase planetary albedo? Is this a help with that? 
@sundogplanets
But do the Optimus robots work?
Will they ever work because they rely only on vision and not 100s of touch sensors and distance measurement sensors?
It all seems like fantasy.
@sundogplanets OMFSM, this is stupid on so many levels? How many Optimus robots to do the work? m(
Edit: typo
Perhaps they filed for permission for 1 million satellites, more so that they would not need to ask for permission again for a long time (no matter the purpose of the satellite), than to actually launch 1 million satellites in the near-to-mid-term.
No matter the goals of the administration, they would be stupid to give that away.
"Data center" satellite. Any satellite with a computer in it.
Plus they are hugely vulnerable to any number of disruptions, including to anyone with a launcher and a bucket of ball bearings.
Anyone who thinks these won't be a target in future wars isn't paying attention to the way infrastructure is destroyed in modern asymmetric warfare – despite the fact we have an object lesson going right now. And the number of small nations with a big enough launcher increases every year.
Yeah. One good Starlink hit could trigger a whole Kessler Syndrome cascade.
And I really doubt Musk has them insured for 'acts of war'. (If he has them insured at all.)
I'm also surprised North Korea hasn't threatened to do something like this.
STOP AI DATACENTRES USING COMMUNITY POWER AND WATER!!!
Ok
NOT LIKE THAT!!!!!
Time to admit if you're opposed to orbital #Ai your opposition to Ai wasn't about environmental damage.
@n_dimension Well, not like that because the physics doesn't work.
- Way too hard to keep cool
- Say hello to Kessler effect
And if you care about the environment, you should care about all the substances that will end up in the upper atmosphere from the regular deorbiting of all those satellites. It's pretty much like dumping your rubbish in the ocean and thinking it's gone.
Ai Orbitals dont have to be in geostationary. You can boost them higher. Say goodbye to Kessler effect.
"Way to hard to keep cool", I seem to be the only person on this planet who has heard of droplet cooling or nuclear turbine cooling. Way more efficient than radiator fins, which is what every 'expert' seems to be stuck on.
@n_dimension @sundogplanets Droplet cooling sounds interesting. This is the newest article I came across: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/350281931_A_Review_on_Thermal_Design_of_Liquid_Droplet_Radiator_System
That was 5 years ago, is there a system in production or is this still at the research stage?
However, even if the cooling problems are solved, this won't solve the environmental problem of littering our upper atmosphere with chemicals.
I didn't look into nuclear turbine cooling. If that generates radioactive waste, no thank you, that's more environmental harm.
Nuke turbine cooling:
SP-100 - 1994 DARPA Design, fully engineered
Krusty 2018, Tested on the ground AT FULL POWER
Both designs are self contained nuke wise.
@gunchleoc @sundogplanets @ArtHarg
No, the problem is mass/radiator areas.
With "experts" calculating 8 football fields of radiators for a few racks.
Both carbon-carbon nuke heatpipes and droplet cooling are 10-20x and 20-500x times more efficient than AL-fins.
Both use radiation, like the fins.
And space is big.
(BTW: Both designs are from the SDI era, ancient)
@n_dimension @sundogplanets I'm opposed to orbital AI because it's a dumbfuck idea. Let's burn fuck knows how much more of the planet to put heavy things that need maintenance, cooling and low latency reliable network connections in space, where those three things are exponentially more difficult and it clutters the sky to boot.
Oh, and they'll need extra radiation shielding too, because modern hardware absolutely shits itself when it's constantly bombarded by particles that are bigger than its logic gates. The whole idea is fractally stupid.
I agree orbital Ai is stupid...
... But you only have to scroll through Mastodon to see how many folks loathe Ai.
... And when 80% of jobs are gone and Broligarchs ICE is turning Palantir targetted "antifa terrorists" into fertiliser and biodiesel, some of these anti-ai folks might actually stop posting stupid memes and start smashing data centres...
... And when it's in orbit, that was resources well spent.
enough radiative cooling for a whole handful of 700W AI gpus, what even is the point
@sundogplanets Thanks for your reporting on this! Do wish more of these tech folk had seen Wall-E back in the day. Always amazing how much science fiction and science fact roll together.
And do hope the goats are doing well. 😊
Excellently put "One corporation based in one country should not be allowed to ruin orbit, the night sky, and the atmosphere for everyone else in the world."
Will we be able to see the Starlinks all crashing into each other?
Prof. Sam Lawler
Dieu
Dr. Eric J. Fielding, PhD
Martin Schröder 🇺🇳
Michael Busch
Pseudonymous 
bencourtice
Ray McCarthy
Benjamin Knispel
GadgetGav
bjb 
Rob Pumphrey
Jack William Bell
James Helferty
Wulfy—Speaker to the machines
Ben
GunChleoc
Arthur van der Harg
woe2you
josh buermann
Abram Kedge🏴🇨🇦 wryly
AI6YR Ben
Anthony Baker
Eye
Mx. Chara Aznable (they/them) of Pnictogen
stony kark
Lazarou Monkey Terror 🚀💙🌈
bituur esztreym
Taran Rampersad
John Burns
Tilda Moose, citizen
MaxSmithee
D. G. Marshall
Mota