[grvbck]

From a technical standpoint: amazing achievement, and the tech nerd in me is in awe. But it feels like a lot of people don't understand (or care?) how much these companies are polluting the space.

Before the "new wave", in 2010-2015 or so, Earth had around 1500 active satellites in orbit, and another 2,000-2,500 defunct ones.

Starlink now has almost 9,500 satellites in orbit, has approvals for 12,000 and long-term plans for up to 42,000. Blue Origin has added 5,500 to that. Amazon plans for 3,000. China has two megaconstellations under construction, for a total of 26,000, and has filed for even larger systems, up to 200,000 satellites.

We might be the last generation that is able to watch the stars.

[Aurornis]

> We might be the last generation that is able to watch the stars.

I'm not convinced this is a major issue, but I'd like to hear arguments for why it is.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't LEO satellites only going to reflect light from the sun when they're at low angles near sunrise and sunset? For night time stargazing, they're going to be in Earth's shadow, too.

The amount of light they reflect back is also small. They can be seen if you look closely at just the right time, but I don't understand how this is supposed to be so much light that it starts raising the overall background light level considerably. The satellites are small and can only reflect so much.

Is it just annoyance that they're up there and showing up in photos?

[justin66]

> Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't LEO satellites only going to reflect light from the sun when they're at low angles near sunrise and sunset? For night time stargazing, they're going to be in Earth's shadow, too.

Iridium's LEO satellites were sometimes (impressively) visible after midnight.

[leetharris]

"Polluting" is a very charged term. These satellites provide immense value. So far, there is no evidence these will stop us from watching the stars.

[GuinansEyebrows]

"value" is also a very charged term, and pollution is nearly purely a byproduct of the pursuit of value.

[grvbck]

(Also, for a frame of reference as to how large these numbers are: the entire gps network operates on 31 satellites.)

[stefan_]

Is it a lot? It's a bit like you are telling me there are gonna be 250000 cars on a planet larger than Earth.

[looperhacks]

With the difference that cars can steer and stop to avoid collisions and aren't necessarily in your field of view every time you look at the night sky ;)

I have no idea if the number is actually a lot shrug but it's surely different than cars on a planet's surface

[quaintdev]

I wonder if there's a limit to space junk beyond which leaving the Earth in a space shuttle becomes impossible.

[Aurornis]

These satellites are low Earth orbit (LEO)

They're extremely sparse. Imagine putting 12,000 satellites randomly over the surface of the Earth. You're just not going to bump into one, statistically. Now expand that into 3D space in an orbital zone above us.

It's not a collision risk.

[m4rtink]

It is already impossible - all the remaining Space Shuttles are in a museum, not to mention all Space Shuttle missions were (and were always intended to be) to Earth orbit. No Space Shuttle ever went past 600 km hight Earth orbit.

[JumpCrisscross]

> wonder if there's a limit to space junk beyond which leaving the Earth in a space shuttle becomes impossible

There is. We don't have the industrial capacity, as a species, to do it.

[direwolf20]

How many causes Kessler syndrome?

[JumpCrisscross]

> How many causes Kessler syndrome?

Space is huge. Try this trick: the number of satellites in orbit is about the same as the number of planes in the air at any time. (~12,000 [1].)

The volume of space from the ground to 50,000 feet is about 200x smaller than the volume from the Karman line to the top of LEO alone (~2,000 km).

Put another way, we approach the density of planes in the sky in LEO when there are milliions of satellites in that space alone. Picture what happens if every plane in the sky fell to the ground. Now understand that the same thing happening in LEO, while it occurs at higher energy, also occurs in less-occupied space and will eventually (mostly) burn up in the atmosphere.

Put another way, you could poof every Starlink simultaneously and while it would be tremendously annoying, most satellites orbiting lower would be able to get out of the way, those that couldn't wouldn't cause much more damage, the whole mess would be avoidable for most and entirely gone within a few years.

There are serious problems with space pollution. Catastrophic Kessler cascades that block humans from space, or knock out all of our satellites, aren't one of them.

[1] https://www.travelandleisure.com/airlines-airports/number-of...

[NitpickLawyer]

At the altitudes these mega-constellations operate at, kessler syndrome is not a real threat. Even if left unpowered, everything there will naturally re-enter the atmosphere in ~5 years.