Obviously high-bandwidth satellite internet is important. Speaking from a place in the USA where we only have one option for pretty crappy DSL internet (at $60 a month), I would probably even be among the first to try and get it! Before you criticize scientists as having tunnel vision for attempting to stymie global world progress, consider that astronomers are not and have never been in a position to have any regulatory power on this issue. At most they can inform the public of the side effects.
There was a similar situation when a Russian private company sent up a satellite that would deploy reflectors to purposefully make it one of the brightest objects in the night sky[1]. I image some astronomers breathed a sigh of relief when the reflectors didn't properly deploy.
In radio astronomy, there are a few small protected bands to keep some portions of the spectrum quiet for scientific purposes. There is no such "spectrum allocation" for optical astronomy. Like chopping down the rain forest or putting plastic in the ocean, we may improve our quality of life through external costs. Governmental regulation permits us to partially control for these externalities. Perhaps if we find ourselves in a big mess like with CFC's and destroying the ozone layer, we will have a public call-to-action to create regulations.
So, what's the rub? Ground based telescopes are vastly cheaper than space-based alternatives for optical and radio astronomy. The difference in cost is often more than two orders of magnitude. If ground based telescopes become less efficient or less productive, there will simply be fewer scientific discoveries made within a flat budget. If the public is required to increase the budgets of NASA, NSF, ESO, and ESA to maintain their desired level of scientific output, then that in itself is an external cost that SpaceX and other companies are passing on.
Wondering if these satellites follow a fixed path. If so, and there are few enough of them, the nextgen land-based optical telescopes will just have to factor this into scheduling.
Has SpaceX said anything about the paths they will follow? Can they change mid-deployment?
They all have Xenon thrusters and can move, however will do so only when needed to dodge other satellites or debris. Changing their orbit significantly is prohibitively expensive.
You can see the general pattern in a really cool webgl animation on the main site: https://www.starlink.com/
Interestingly (if somewhat unfortunately), this is already done for some radio telescopes. Some satellite down-links are strong enough to damage the receivers, so their visibility has to be taken into account when considering what frequencies to observe at what times.
From a minute of googling, there’s roughly 5k satellites in orbit right now. Most of those are in a slightly higher orbit than Starlink’s (LEO) so they’re incrementally farther away, but would be in a better position to catch sunlight in the night sky.
And yet I, probably like everyone else who isn’t an astronomy enthusiast, haven’t ever looked at a light in the sky and known it was a satellite. They’re subtle, not dominating the night sky by any means, at least insofar as an untrained modern human can tell. Starlink would up the number of satellites by ~2x, perhaps, but would that be enough to change the basic equation?
> at least insofar as an untrained modern human can tell
Perhaps, but that's irrelevant to this discussion which was initiated by competent experts in their field. Not like protests against 5G which are based on dodgy YouTube videos.
Starlink will have a significant impact on the global night sky based solely on the approval of one agency of one country of 8% of the World's population. Even if you as a layman don't perceive it to be a problem in your daily life, doesn't that just seem... wrong? If North Korea had taken such a step there would be sanctions.
There's also 10,000+ aircraft (and over a million people!) in the air at any time, and those planes have nav lights and strobes that are much brighter than satellites.
Is it worth protecting ground based astronomy here though? Obviously the science is immensely important, but so is the internet, I dont buy this idea about the lack of consensus being an issue. Certainly the scientists should have had their say, and perhaps this should have been put up for a more public debate before the project was initiated, but I don't think that the go ahead to the project should be contingent on consensus from the scientific community. It should be contingent on approval from a regulatory body that is appointed/controlled in some democratic way and reflects the will of the population, and if the benefits to society outweigh the risks, then it should get the go ahead regardless of consensus by astronomers.
>I don't think that the go ahead to the project should be contingent on consensus from the scientific community.
Something that could have immense impact on astronomy, the interest of the population in the cosmos, and a permanent change to the night sky shouldn't have some consensus, at least morally?
>It should be contingent on approval from a regulatory body that is appointed/controlled in some democratic way and reflects the will of the population,
Do those exist, much less in the current US administration?
>and if the benefits to society outweigh the risks, then it should get the go ahead regardless of consensus by astronomers.
...unless there is a way to accomplish the same thing for 99% of the population that is better implemented or doesn't affect the sky.
Possibly unpopular opinion: no, I don't think it's worth protecting ground-based astronomy. I could be wrong, but the majority of the important visual/IR astronomical observations from the last decade seem have come from space-based instruments, not ground-based ones. We need to put more instruments in orbit, not worry about fundamentally limited ones on the ground.
Additionally, this seems to me like an overall positive effect for the public at large. Being able to see satellites zooming across the sky is pretty cool, provides educational opportunities beyond what normal stargazing offers, and reminds people that there's something to aspire to (and look forward to) beyond what's on the ground.
Someone ought to do a simulation of what this would look like with the full constellation. I love stargazing, I take days long trips to go to dark sites just so I can enjoy the sky. I imagine it would be quite beautiful to see that the implied lattice around the earth as sun glints off the solar panels.
I'm personally so excited to see these, I think it will be a breathtaking, tangible emblem of one of the first planet-scale systems that humans have built.
> His estimates suggest that once the first 1,584 satellites are launched, for which the trajectories have already been made public, there will be about 15 satellites clearly visible above the horizon for three to four hours after sunset and before sunrise.
Oh no, 15 tiny lights in the sky. Not really a blight.
I care about light pollution a lot and think most people are missing what I had when I grew up (Canadian/American border in the 90's). I wish cities had strict codes and <1% of the waste light they do now.
But dark skies are not dark at all - there are about 10000 visible stars. A few moving dots is not going to ruin the experience.
Has anyone yet built an AR simulator app of what SpaceX informs us will be their satellites’ visibility with correctly-aimed panels at various times of day, dusk, and night?
Not too worried about it. They have a shelf life and I imagine their design will improve over time.
I'd rather see some regulations against all the lights in the Walmart/shopping mall/grocery store parking lots which have completely ruined the night sky in my area.
The shelf life isn't the problem. The problem is quantity in the sky (this will continuously be relaunched) and how bright they are. This will ruin many long exposures for many existing telescopes, but you can do some amount of image subtraction if you do many short exposures. That's might be a problem for some instruments depending on their readout electronics.
As a defender of space travel and Starlink: Nobody in their right mind wants that. Public reaction would rightly be swift and negative. Starlink provides a useful, widely available service and the fact you can see them is a side effect (they're not very bright operationally, so it's not really a negative). But a billboard is effectively legal graffiti.
This is such an incredibly short-sighted view from astronomers. The same tech that is going to enable SpaceX to launch thousands of satellites is exactly what will enable (and fund) the expansion of humans into space — which will be more of a boon to astronomy in the long term than any number of large ground-based telescopes.
I'm perfectly happy to permanently screw over ground-based astronomy if that's what it take to get us into space.
Just build the damn telescopes in space. And stop thinking single-mirror scopes like Hubble — you could build huge multiple-segment mirrors in space — much bigger than anything on earth.
autocorr|6 years ago
There was a similar situation when a Russian private company sent up a satellite that would deploy reflectors to purposefully make it one of the brightest objects in the night sky[1]. I image some astronomers breathed a sigh of relief when the reflectors didn't properly deploy.
In radio astronomy, there are a few small protected bands to keep some portions of the spectrum quiet for scientific purposes. There is no such "spectrum allocation" for optical astronomy. Like chopping down the rain forest or putting plastic in the ocean, we may improve our quality of life through external costs. Governmental regulation permits us to partially control for these externalities. Perhaps if we find ourselves in a big mess like with CFC's and destroying the ozone layer, we will have a public call-to-action to create regulations.
So, what's the rub? Ground based telescopes are vastly cheaper than space-based alternatives for optical and radio astronomy. The difference in cost is often more than two orders of magnitude. If ground based telescopes become less efficient or less productive, there will simply be fewer scientific discoveries made within a flat budget. If the public is required to increase the budgets of NASA, NSF, ESO, and ESA to maintain their desired level of scientific output, then that in itself is an external cost that SpaceX and other companies are passing on.
[1] http://spaceflight101.com/soyuz-kanopus-v-ik/mayak/
nonnontrivial|6 years ago
Has SpaceX said anything about the paths they will follow? Can they change mid-deployment?
aeternus|6 years ago
You can see the general pattern in a really cool webgl animation on the main site: https://www.starlink.com/
autocorr|6 years ago
maxander|6 years ago
And yet I, probably like everyone else who isn’t an astronomy enthusiast, haven’t ever looked at a light in the sky and known it was a satellite. They’re subtle, not dominating the night sky by any means, at least insofar as an untrained modern human can tell. Starlink would up the number of satellites by ~2x, perhaps, but would that be enough to change the basic equation?
dingaling|6 years ago
Perhaps, but that's irrelevant to this discussion which was initiated by competent experts in their field. Not like protests against 5G which are based on dodgy YouTube videos.
Starlink will have a significant impact on the global night sky based solely on the approval of one agency of one country of 8% of the World's population. Even if you as a layman don't perceive it to be a problem in your daily life, doesn't that just seem... wrong? If North Korea had taken such a step there would be sanctions.
perilunar|6 years ago
vikramkr|6 years ago
unethical_ban|6 years ago
Something that could have immense impact on astronomy, the interest of the population in the cosmos, and a permanent change to the night sky shouldn't have some consensus, at least morally?
>It should be contingent on approval from a regulatory body that is appointed/controlled in some democratic way and reflects the will of the population,
Do those exist, much less in the current US administration?
>and if the benefits to society outweigh the risks, then it should get the go ahead regardless of consensus by astronomers.
...unless there is a way to accomplish the same thing for 99% of the population that is better implemented or doesn't affect the sky.
mdorazio|6 years ago
Additionally, this seems to me like an overall positive effect for the public at large. Being able to see satellites zooming across the sky is pretty cool, provides educational opportunities beyond what normal stargazing offers, and reminds people that there's something to aspire to (and look forward to) beyond what's on the ground.
jasonhansel|6 years ago
pfdietz|6 years ago
The NSF budget for astronomy is $250M/year.
Revenue projections for Starlink reach as high as $50B/year.
tapvt|6 years ago
It’d be nice to have Internet way out there. But at the cost of my (and everyone else’s) pure night sky?
errantspark|6 years ago
I'm personally so excited to see these, I think it will be a breathtaking, tangible emblem of one of the first planet-scale systems that humans have built.
greggeter|6 years ago
[deleted]
sdinsn|6 years ago
Oh no, 15 tiny lights in the sky. Not really a blight.
akvadrako|6 years ago
I care about light pollution a lot and think most people are missing what I had when I grew up (Canadian/American border in the 90's). I wish cities had strict codes and <1% of the waste light they do now.
But dark skies are not dark at all - there are about 10000 visible stars. A few moving dots is not going to ruin the experience.
AngryData|6 years ago
unknown|6 years ago
[deleted]
floatingatoll|6 years ago
thecrumb|6 years ago
I'd rather see some regulations against all the lights in the Walmart/shopping mall/grocery store parking lots which have completely ruined the night sky in my area.
batbomb|6 years ago
It's also a global problem.
vbuwivbiu|6 years ago
LargoLasskhyfv|6 years ago
SmokeGS|6 years ago
Robotbeat|6 years ago
perilunar|6 years ago
I'm perfectly happy to permanently screw over ground-based astronomy if that's what it take to get us into space.
Just build the damn telescopes in space. And stop thinking single-mirror scopes like Hubble — you could build huge multiple-segment mirrors in space — much bigger than anything on earth.