Mastodawn

Elon Musk wants to put a million new satellites into space. Meantime, his old ones keep falling out of the sky - and landing on the Canadian prairies! This week, I rose in the Senate to launch my inquiry in the many problems caused by satellite pollution. (With many thanks to @sundogplanets) https://youtu.be/mH-FDPCtiXM?si=zOZV-GPn4qyOVkOf #cdnpoli #Starlink #SpaceX #saskatchewan #Canada

Satellite Inquiry: Falling Space Junk and Skyrocketing Congestion, Pollution and Liability Concerns

YouTube

Show thread

dragonfrog 4h ago

@Paulatics @sundogplanets
I suspect exactly zero of these silly "AI data centre" satellites will ever be launched.

Data centres are famously hungry for power and cooling. Satellites are famously difficult to run power supplies out to, and exist in a near total vacuum so there is a shortage of stuff to radiate heat out to. The whole scheme makes no sense at all unless seen as solely a scam to get gullible investors to put money into SpaceX.

Show thread

dragonfrog

@Paulatics @sundogplanets (see also: Hyperloop - a project whose goal was never to actually build any rapid mass transit, but rather to look like a much better thing that was just over the horizon, which would dissuade governments from investing in currently existing mass transit technologies like rail. And it worked.)