Starlink Thread (split from SpaceX)

[tater]

LOL

[Codraroll]

19 hours ago, tater said:

Gotta make sure that the increasing Chinese diaspora has access to a properly closed, firewalled, government-approved Internet wherever they are in the world, lest they fall for the temptation to try the non-censored version on their trips abroad.

[kerbiloid]

I hope at least this constellation will orbit in same direction rather than on collision course.

[tater]

Saw a cool Starlink pass just now with my son. We didn't count, but saw, well, all of them, I think. Mostly evenly spaced. Easily visible naked eye.

 

Wow, was looking at a youtube vid, and the ad was for Hughesnet. So I checked on prices. Same monthly as Starlink, and 5-10X slower download (infinitely slower upload)—and it has capped data.

[CatastrophicFailure]

8 minutes ago, tater said:

Saw a cool Starlink pass just now with my son. We didn't count, but saw, well, all of them, I think. Mostly evenly spaced. Easily visible naked eye.

I’d heard they’d been mostly invisible up til now. The white thermal paint on the upper surface while they’re orbit raising must be the culprit, gonna have to start looking again. 

[SpaceFace545]

I feel like megaconstellations promote a sense of disposability around the satellite industry and it really shows a lack of care for the space environment. I guess its internet for everyone but these constellations scream Kessler syndrome. Even if your guidance and satellite tracking systems are 99% effective it only takes a single collision to compromise multiple constellations. I believe that space shouldn't be capitalized on to this scale and its kinda disgusting when you think about it. And what about destroying our beautiful night sky. I was doing some amateur astronomy and then I saw a train of Starlinks go by its awful. It's the same as someone building a internet tower right next to your house. I know this is probably an unpopular opinion but these types of constellations need to be outlawed or severely limited.

[tater]

10 minutes ago, CatastrophicFailure said:

I’d heard they’d been mostly invisible up til now. The white thermal paint on the upper surface while they’re orbit raising must be the culprit, gonna have to start looking again. 

These are the new ones, just launched in late April, still orbit raising, so not oriented to minimize reflection.

9 minutes ago, SpaceFace545 said:

I feel like megaconstellations promote a sense of disposability around the satellite industry and it really shows a lack of care for the space environment. I guess its internet for everyone but these constellations scream Kessler syndrome. Even if your guidance and satellite tracking systems are 99% effective it only takes a single collision to compromise multiple constellations. I believe that space shouldn't be capitalized on to this scale and its kinda disgusting when you think about it. And what about destroying our beautiful night sky. I was doing some amateur astronomy and then I saw a train of Starlinks go by its awful. It's the same as someone building a internet tower right next to your house. I know this is probably an unpopular opinion but these types of constellations need to be outlawed or severely limited.

One, they won't be outlawed, China is going to do their own. Two, I think that trying to mitigate brightness is obviously a better way to go—they're gonna be built anyway, so make them less impactful.

As for disposable, in the case of Starlink they are intentionally in low orbits for this reason. They self dispose in the worst case. The lower orbit also makes them visible during a shorter part of the night around sunset.

On the total other end of the spectrum, I see them and have to think to myself: "Would you like to live in the world of Star Trek, or even the Expanse where space travel is safe and routine?" My answer is generally "%R$& yeah!" And if I follow that train of thought, the sky is necessarily covered with moving dots, all the time. In the case of the Expanse, with fusion blowtorches.

[SpaceFace545]

6 minutes ago, tater said:

On the total other end of the spectrum, I see them and have to think to myself: "Would you like to live in the world of Star Trek, or even the Expanse where space travel is safe and routine?" My answer is generally "%R$& yeah!" And if I follow that train of thought, the sky is necessarily covered with moving dots, all the time. In the case of the Expanse, with fusion blowtorches.

I get what you're saying but we don't live in a world where we have fusion blowtorches or warp drives yet. And it isn't like these megaconstellations benefit the world. The best benefit is giving me an extra gig while I'm out hiking. And wouldn't you rather the skies to be pristine and not capitalized like everything else is?

[tater]

23 minutes ago, SpaceFace545 said:

I get what you're saying but we don't live in a world where we have fusion blowtorches or warp drives yet. And it isn't like these megaconstellations benefit the world. The best benefit is giving me an extra gig while I'm out hiking. And wouldn't you rather the skies to be pristine and not capitalized like everything else is?

I have seen countless satellites hiking for years. Once you're out of town here in NM (I hike/backpack a lot here, and in Colorado), the skies are DARK. And for the hour or two after sunset, the sky is crawling with dots, and has been for ages (particularly if you have binos, as I usually do).

Certainly megaconstellations increase that problem, but it's already not "pristine" is my only point (and jets crawl across, anyway, 24/7). Actually, WRT jets, after 9-11, and even during much of last year flights were substantially reduced. Days where we get contrails here are rarer than many places, but one day we had gorgeous cirrus, and I took pics (was hiking with a buddy) because the sky had these swoops of clouds—and NO AIRCRAFT. Normally with the sky like that moisture wise, the sky would be crisscrossed with contrails. Why are aircraft not banned to make the beautiful daytime sky pristine again?

As for capitalizing? Why would I care if someone makes money?

I think there are legit concerns, and I think that every effort should be made to mitigate these constellations from an astronomy standpoint, and the absolute minimum bar should be once operational, they should not be naked eye objects. Right now Starlinks that are fully deployed are right at the edge of that, they need to get the visual mag lower by a bit I think.

Spoiler

 

^^^Many days that would be criss-crossed with aircraft

Edited May 7, 2021 by tater

[kerbiloid]

36 minutes ago, tater said:

Many days that would be criss-crossed with aircraft

Should be replaced with maglevs and skype, in their turn.

[CatastrophicFailure]

1 hour ago, SpaceFace545 said:

And it isn't like these megaconstellations benefit the world

On the contrary.... and this is just the very beginning.

[Codraroll]

6 hours ago, tater said:

I have seen countless satellites hiking for years. Once you're out of town here in NM (I hike/backpack a lot here, and in Colorado), the skies are DARK. And for the hour or two after sunset, the sky is crawling with dots, and has been for ages (particularly if you have binos, as I usually do).

I wonder what the last remaining uncontacted tribes of the world think about satellites. They have mostly been appearing within living memory. I'd love to hear how they are explaining this new phenomenon. Depending on their visibility from the depths of the Amazon, Papua New Guinea, or North Sentinel Island, Starlink satellites could already be designated as mythological creatures.

[SOXBLOX]

9 hours ago, tater said:

I think there are legit concerns, and I think that every effort should be made to mitigate these constellations from an astronomy standpoint, and the absolute minimum bar should be once operational, they should not be naked eye objects. Right now Starlinks that are fully deployed are right at the edge of that, they need to get the visual mag lower by a bit I think.

I would be happier to see them reduced to mag 8 or higher. That way we amateur astronomers can take pictures of things besides satellites.

3 hours ago, Codraroll said:

Depending on their visibility from the depths of the Amazon, Papua New Guinea, or North Sentinel Island, Starlink satellites could already be designated as mythological creatures.

That would be fascinating.

Hey forum, we need volunteers to go see these people! lol

[tater]

1 minute ago, SOXBLOX said:

I would be happier to see them reduced to mag 8 or higher. That way we amateur astronomers can take pictures of things besides satellites.

Yeah, the less reflective the better, clearly.

Starlink sats are really novel because if their "flat pack" nature so that F9 can loft the maximum number.

Recently they have started making the parts pointing radially outwards after they are deployed at target altitude white for thermal management.

As long as they are somewhat mass and volume limited, they might be constrained WRT their albedo. They can't paint them all vanta black, for example.

What happens when Starship is flying? mass is literally no longer an issue. yeah, they can get more of the current Starlinks inside SS, but they could also get slightly fewer per launch—and have them be designed to deal with albedo reduction. Perhaps they get active radiators so they can be darker?

[cubinator]

42 minutes ago, tater said:

Perhaps they get active radiators so they can be darker?

in visible light, sure, but what would that do to the infrared?

[tater]

2 minutes ago, cubinator said:

in visible light, sure, but what would that do to the infrared?

I'd assume they'd want them on the back side of the solar (facing away from the sun), so radially out?

[Jacke]

19 hours ago, tater said:

On the total other end of the spectrum, I see them and have to think to myself: "Would you like to live in the world of Star Trek, or even the Expanse where space travel is safe and routine?" My answer is generally "%R$& yeah!" And if I follow that train of thought, the sky is necessarily covered with moving dots, all the time. In the case of the Expanse, with fusion blowtorches.

We've had this conversation before.  Besides the Kessler Syndrome threat, massive LEO satellite constellations, due to being very close and the inverse square law, are a greater source of light pollution that even an extreme interplanetary economy with thousands of fusion torch drives.  And that light pollution is now, not in some imagined future.  No matter.  With the impact on serious amateur and professional groud-based astronomy--which is the majority of the research done--I imagine someone will do the exact math and observation and publish the numbers on the amount of damage.

The fact that Elon Musk didn't even think or care about the light pollution aspect speaks to his true nature.

[tater]

1 minute ago, Jacke said:

We've had this conversation before.  Besides the Kessler Syndrome threat, massive LEO satellite constellations, due to being very close and the inverse square law, are a greater source of light pollution that even an extreme interplanetary economy with thousands of fusion torch drives. 

That's nonsense (the bit about the blowtorches). They'd be naked eye objects even in daylight I would imagine if near Earth (and most would be leaving here or coming here at any given time). Awful in IR as well. A spacefaring society will require optical observatories in deep space. Radio can potentially be lunar farside.

 

1 minute ago, Jacke said:

And that light pollution is now, not in some imagined future.  No matter.  With the impact on serious amateur and professional groud-based astronomy--which is the majority of the research done--I imagine someone will do the exact math and observation and publish the numbers on the amount of damage.

Yeah, it's a problem that presumably gets solved via engineering it away (reducing sat albedo). Do you expect the Chinese megaconstellation to be better, or worse? What about Kuiper (Amazon)? Better or worse?

I tend to think this is a phase, just as we're in the phase where the daytime sky is ruined by aircraft contrails (and the night by their blinking lights). If the solution requires larger sats, then we need cheaper heavy lift. Regardless, if there is a market for LEO sat internet someone will eventually do it.

 

1 minute ago, Jacke said:

The fact that Elon Musk didn't even think or care about the light pollution aspect speaks to his true nature.

Yes, clearly he's evil. His true goal was to destroy astronomy.

That or it simply never occurred to anyone until after they launched them. It was simply not an issue before—what's the earliest link you can find to concerns about this (the earliest before any flew)?

SpaceX at least seems willing to work on this issue, it'll be interesting to see what China does.

 

[Spacescifi]

18 hours ago, Jacke said:

We've had this conversation before.  Besides the Kessler Syndrome threat, massive LEO satellite constellations, due to being very close and the inverse square law, are a greater source of light pollution that even an extreme interplanetary economy with thousands of fusion torch drives.  And that light pollution is now, not in some imagined future.  No matter.  With the impact on serious amateur and professional groud-based astronomy--which is the majority of the research done--I imagine someone will do the exact math and observation and publish the numbers on the amount of damage.

The fact that Elon Musk didn't even think or care about the light pollution aspect speaks to his true nature.

 

Profit and glory.

 

He is arguably no different than any other visionary CEO in that regard.

To be remembered for doing what has never been done.

For lack of eternity....to do something that will transcend beyond him.

 

That is the kind of stuff mankind get up to when they are not scraping by with the basics of food, clothing and shelter.

The irony is that Mars colonists  as per the plan will be doing EXACTLY that.

Edited May 8, 2021 by Spacescifi

[YNM]

19 hours ago, tater said:

I tend to think this is a phase, just as we're in the phase where the daytime sky is ruined by aircraft contrails (and the night by their blinking lights).

Airplanes at least have much more constrained routes - there's a good reason most crashes happened at terminal phases (takeoff/landing), and recently en-route crashes have been because they're too close to each other from the position precision following the routes.

Satellites don't do this wrt the Earth's surface.

Also the forces at launch can often mean it's very hard to launch large things with extremely high precision. We'll probably solve that by moving to manufacturing them in space but that's going to be in the decades and centuries to come after the internet constellations (and assuming we can still launch anything to space because there isn't a wreck of debris around the planet yet).

SpaceX is indeed a lot more caring at least compared to the others in the market (or planning to be in the market) but the results of things are often determined on the lowest bar.

Will say that I honestly don't get the drive for satellite-based internet however... Land-based (and undersea-based) connection is a lot more reliable IMO. The only drive here is because it's much easier (read : requires less maintenance and upfront cost) than anything land-based but it'll always be much more reliable with land-based connection. We have roads to most places on the Earth... why not a fiber optic cable or two ?

Edited May 8, 2021 by YNM

[tater]

15 minutes ago, YNM said:

Will say that I honestly don't get the drive for satellite-based internet however... Land-based (and undersea-based) connection is a lot more reliable IMO. The only drive here is because it's much easier (read : requires less maintenance and upfront cost) than anything land-based but it'll always be much more reliable with land-based connection. We have roads to most places on the Earth... why not a fiber optic cable or two ?

Yeah, it seems like the best solution to people who are the most concerned would be to build better terrestrial infrastructure. Don't want loads of LEO sats? Throw a few billions at the problem of really cheap cabling?

Maybe someone could come up with mini-tunneling? The whole "cars in tunnels" seems goofy to me, but pipe sized tunnels to run cables through? Good idea if you can come up with a fast, cheap way to do it.

[YNM]

14 minutes ago, tater said:

Maybe someone could come up with mini-tunneling? The whole "cars in tunnels" seems goofy to me, but pipe sized tunnels to run cables through? Good idea if you can come up with a fast, cheap way to do it.

It's commonly done these days - there are contractors specialized in tunneling for utilities and sewers.

Or you don't even need tunnels. We already commonly run electricity as well as telephone cables on overhead lines hung from poles anyway, and those are as important as (if not more important than) the internet. I have fiber optic to my home, even the national telephone company uses optical cables everywhere these days. Granted the internet service that they provide is crap (so I actually have two fiber optic cable into my home, one from a different provider) but they already put out the infrastructure for it for free - when they updated it from copper cables that ends on an RJ-45 jack to optical that ends on an GPON/ONT device we didn't have to pay anything extra.

Edited May 8, 2021 by YNM

[tater]

5 minutes ago, YNM said:

Or you don't even need tunnels. We already commonly run electricity as well as telephone cables on overhead lines hung from poles anyway, and those are as important as (if not more important than) the internet. I have fiber optic to my home, even the national telephone company uses optical cables everywhere these days. Granted the internet service that they provide is crap (so I actually have two fiber optic cable into my home, one from a different provider) but they already put out the infrastructure for it for free...

I barely get reliable DSL here (copper). All our lines up where I am are buried, and there is pretty much zero chance of getting them to improve it (hence my recent Starlink order).

[YNM]

1 minute ago, tater said:

All our lines up where I am are buried, and there is pretty much zero chance of getting them to improve it

Maaaybe make the chance non-zero.

Legislations, legislations...

[tater]

Just now, YNM said:

Maaaybe make the chance non-zero.

Legislations, legislations...

Who would pay for it for a few hundred houses? The ground here is also rather full of rocks. Large rocks (I have a few inside my house, actually—like in this room behind me, lol). Digging is expensive.

At the time cable was buried, there was a disagreement with the Pueblo about who owned what land, and they didn't allow the digging, so cable never crossed the road (disputed land boundary) to my side of the neighborhood. The Pueblo actually has all the land now, but the cable people could have done it for a small incremental cost when it was a huge project, they will literally never start over and do it fresh at this point.