Starlink Thread (split from SpaceX)

[AlamoVampire]

Satellite internet is not the “mana from heaven” that people seem to think it is. A buddy of mine up in canada lives in a place where satellite internet is his only option. The issues hes reported to me are in no particular order: bandwidth issues, weather related interruptions of service (like satellite tv from how he describes it), heavily data capped and very heavily data throttled. If he is right (i have no reason to doubt him) starlink will be likely no different. Beyond that musk is putting tens of thousands of those blasted things up there. Not worth it imo. Not a good idea either imo.

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[wumpus]

15 hours ago, AlamoVampire said:

Satellite internet is not the “mana from heaven” that people seem to think it is. A buddy of mine up in canada lives in a place where satellite internet is his only option. The issues hes reported to me are in no particular order: bandwidth issues, weather related interruptions of service (like satellite tv from how he describes it), heavily data capped and very heavily data throttled. If he is right (i have no reason to doubt him) starlink will be likely no different. Beyond that musk is putting tens of thousands of those blasted things up there. Not worth it imo. Not a good idea either imo.

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There should be significant differences between Geosync and starlink (or any competitor).  Weather is likely to be the same, as they both go through the same atmosphere.  Latency is far lower.  Bandwidth should be wildly higher.  With Geosync, there can be one geosync satellite ever few degrees, and all the bandwidth from the hemisphere goes through those satellites.  With starlink, the congestion is a completely different story.  If the satellite you are using can be reached by Vancouver (and if Vancouver, Seattle is also an issue), Toronto, or possibly a big military base, then you will have a lot of congestion.  If you are sharing your area with a bunch of caribou, you shouldn't have any problems.  Data caps are entirely up to starlink, and I'd worry that they would base them on urban use rather than their more effective areas.

It should be wildly better than current satellite internet.  When people think about ditching their own ISP and moving to starlink is where things fall apart.  If even Tater is willing to stick with DSL (I'm assuming that his area has rather low population density), that's a good indication of just how limited starlink is compared to any other non-satellite ISP.

My understanding is the whole thing will make a profit just off military and Wall Street-City of London-Shanghai communication.  Rural internet is mostly for PR and sucking up subsidies.  But if you are using satellite internet already, expect a big improvement (although I can't guess what the caps will be).

[tater]

16 hours ago, AlamoVampire said:

Satellite internet is not the “mana from heaven” that people seem to think it is. A buddy of mine up in canada lives in a place where satellite internet is his only option. The issues hes reported to me are in no particular order: bandwidth issues, weather related interruptions of service (like satellite tv from how he describes it), heavily data capped and very heavily data throttled. If he is right (i have no reason to doubt him) starlink will be likely no different. Beyond that musk is putting tens of thousands of those blasted things up there. Not worth it imo. Not a good idea either imo.

I'm unsure how it will pan out, but while it shares some issues with GEO sat internet (weather), the rest are not issues at all.

More bandwidth, and symmetric. GEO internet is broadband (with latency) DOWN, but regular telephone modem UP. There is no uplink to current sat internet. So you might get the bandwidth to watch a movie, but sending a family pic to grandma might take an hour or two, lol.

I'm deeply torn about the impact on the sky. Mitigation for visual impact (naked eye) is obviously the least that can happen, but pretty much any enhanced view of the sky will be impacted (astrophotography, astronomy, etc). On the other hand, if you asked if I would want Star Trek, or even Expanse levels of spaceflight, I'd answer "yes" without a moment's hesitation—and the night sky would be far, far more impacted by that. My gut feeling is that the sky crawling with dots is an intermediate step for humanity on the way to becoming spacefaring. Time will tell.

[AlamoVampire]

@tater those clutter satellites of musks are going to greatly and very negatively affect not just amateur astronomers/astrophotographers but also the professionals that are trying to do real impactful science from ground based observatories.  Thats is a true problem. One that will impact us negatively. Does musk care? I doubt it. 
 

I have to alter a few words of the quote to target musk directly but this quote from Jurassic Park applies directly to him:

Elon Musk is so preoccupied with whether he can that he never stops to think if he should.

 

To which I say he decidedly must stop. Starlinks gains < starlinks costs to ground based astronomical practices both professional and amateur. 
 

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[tater]

14 minutes ago, AlamoVampire said:

@tater those clutter satellites of musks are going to greatly and very negatively affect not just amateur astronomers/astrophotographers but also the professionals that are trying to do real impactful science from ground based observatories.  Thats is a true problem. One that will impact us negatively. Does musk care? I doubt it. 
 

I have to alter a few words of the quote to target musk directly but this quote from Jurassic Park applies directly to him:

Elon Musk is so preoccupied with whether he can that he never stops to think if he should.

To which I say he decidedly must stop. Starlinks gains < starlinks costs to ground based astronomical practices both professional and amateur.

I'm well aware of the impact on astronomy, I explicitly said so, in that "any enhanced view of the sky" (optics) would be negatively impacted depending on the time, latitude, etc.

The solution to that is more space-based astronomy in the long term. In the short term it will impact observational astronomy during most any time frame where there are sats illuminated by the sun.

The question remains, though:

If you could snap your fingers and enable space travel at the level of "The Expanse," would you? If the answer is yes, the night sky is crawling with fusion torch drives. Identical problem, indeed worse. The mitigation would be space based astronomy. There's really no question that humanity being truly spacefaring means messing up the sky.

The bottom line is that large sat constellations are going to be a thing, either Starlink, or whatever Amazon is calling their constellation, or any other competitors. SpaceX could cancel Starlink tomorrow, and it's still going to happen, just with a different name.

[cubinator]

My main concern is that other companies are trying to compete with Starlink by launching their own constellations. Of all the places where competition occurs, this isn't the best place for it. We should only have one satellite internet constellation. I think one is fine, but multiple would be too much.

[tater]

5 minutes ago, cubinator said:

My main concern is that other companies are trying to compete with Starlink by launching their own constellations. Of all the places where competition occurs, this isn't the best place for it. We should only have one satellite internet constellation. I think one is fine, but multiple would be too much.

That's trickier, obviously, who decides who the winner is in this case.

The other constellations are also higher up, which means while there are fewer sats, they are visible longer into the night.

Starlink has every possibility of becoming fully operational before anyone else flies anything at all, though.

[AlamoVampire]

@tater I did not say you were not aware. I was and am clarifying my deep concern on this issue.

1. There will likely never not be a need for ground based observation professionally. 
2. I find it offensive personally that the ability for the amateur observer and amateur astrophotographer of deep sky objects is essentially being this disrespected by systems like starlink and its proponents. 
3. There are programs out there that use images and observations by the general public to aid in larger studies. Obliterating our ability as amateurs to clearly view and image the night sky is offensive to me. More-so when folks hand wave the issue away by suggesting we move to only space based observation. 
3a. For the foreseeable future its financially implausible and needlessly complex for maintenance of the gear to use only space based tech. Hubble is never going to see another service mission and will fall from the sky one day. This is soul crushingly sad. However telescopes at say the McDonald Observatory out in West Texas which have been functional since 1933 will likely in one form or another be operational long after the James Webb Space Telescope is orbital junk, and its not even in space yet.
4. No. I would not snap my fingers and give technologies we are unprepared for. I find no reason or connection to or for your question with regards to the objective negative effect musk and others of his ilk are and will have on ground based astronomical studies.
 

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[Spaceception]

24 minutes ago, AlamoVampire said:

1. There will likely never not be a need for ground based observation professionally. 
2. I find it offensive personally that the ability for the amateur observer and amateur astrophotographer of deep sky objects is essentially being this disrespected by systems like starlink and its proponents. 

If we have any space age future in orbit, ground based observatories would be hard pressed to exist, there would be too much clutter for them.  They would be out in deep space, and astronomers would be working with databanks and computers on the ground like they do with current space observatories. And the thing about SpaceX is that they're not just building a constellation, they're building a vehicle that will have a large volume for payloads, and be potentially cheap enough to massively increase the number of in-space telescopes.

But as we increase our activity in space, this issue is going to worsen one way or another. More space stations, more satellites, more moving parts.  We're in a transitionary period, where our abilities are growing quickly, but our traditional ways are clashing, and unable to keep pace. Something that's happened a lot in the past few centuries.  I think a better way to phase it is: We're going to have this technology someday. We won't keep a limited number of satellites forever, or remain in LEO forever. Even if it doesn't happen today, what about 20 years from now? 30? 50? 100? At what point do we have to adapt and learn to live with it?

[Shpaget]

5 hours ago, AlamoVampire said:

2. I find it offensive personally that the ability for the amateur observer and amateur astrophotographer of deep sky objects is essentially being this disrespected...

Me too, and that is why I demand that we mandate turning off all the streetlights, all building illumination and basically every other outdoor light source after 10 PM local, worldwide, and if you want to have the lights on inside your house, pull some blinds over your windows so your light pollution doesn't spill into the nature.

I'm not even half joking.

[kerbiloid]

IR streetlights + passive IR goggles.

[AlamoVampire]

1 hour ago, Shpaget said:

Me too, and that is why I demand that we mandate turning off all the streetlights, all building illumination and basically every other outdoor light source after 10 PM local, worldwide, and if you want to have the lights on inside your house, pull some blinds over your windows so your light pollution doesn't spill into the nature.

I'm not even half joking.

Id love that. But I think finding ways for lights to pollute less is more realistic. Perhaps lights on a more red scale or something.

The worst part is that we as a society (humanity as a whole) are drifting further away from our heritage and becoming so focused on the here and now and instant gratification of (insert a persona desired instant gratification here) that we are losing our selves. We are losing our sky and the wonders it holds and far too few people give enough of a care to care or do something about it. I honestly think we are heading head long into a Wall-E type apathetic and disconnected from reality future. It terrifies me. 
 

Just because we can develop a future tech, should we?

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[K^2]

2 hours ago, Shpaget said:

Me too, and that is why I demand that we mandate turning off all the streetlights, all building illumination and basically every other outdoor light source after 10 PM local, worldwide, and if you want to have the lights on inside your house, pull some blinds over your windows so your light pollution doesn't spill into the nature.

Sure. Lets greatly increase traffic fatalities and probably crime rates at least in some places just so that a few people can enjoy their hobby.

There is no good reason for ground observations from general population areas. If you need to install a building-sized telescopes, you can put it on a remote mountain and have zero light pollution. And the kind of data you can collect with a hobby telescope you can get from small satellites. We haven't bothered with it so far, because it was easier to just have hobbyists buy their own equipment, but we're now shifting into the world where it makes more sense for research institutions to launch small telescope sats and time-share it to hobbyists to do studies. Very similar to how we have been crowd-sourcing a lot of data analysis on exoplanet search. Hobbyists aren't finding exoplanets using their own telescopes, they are sifting through data collected with serious equipment, and there is no reason not to do the same thing with visual observations.

[AlamoVampire]

50 minutes ago, K^2 said:

There is no good reason for ground observations from general population areas.

Oh really? Lets use me for an example. I live in an area with Class 8 Bortle Skies. Did I mention my house is 19 miles from the down town area of my city? Yeah. I live 19 miles from down town and my sky glows nearly as brightly as if I were in down town. In down town the Bortle Class is Class 9. The worst of the worst. Now, some would say, well, pack your stuff up and get to a dark sky site! I would absolutely love to. However that is wildly impractical. The nearest dark sky site is over 2 hours one way from my home. I cannot pack up a 70 pound mount, a 20 pound telescope and my camera gear each time I want to do some DSO astrophotography. It is far more practical to do this from my house. However, I want to show you guys something. The next 4 or so images I post range in time of open shutter from a brief press of my cable release to 2 seconds to 5 seconds to just under 90 seconds. Same spot in my yard, under a tree that will soon be taken down <old tree is old tree lol> and was covering a nearly full moon. There is a sodium light street lamp across the street from me. All shots are taken in the span of about 2 minutes at my typical ISO of 3200 <used for DSO imaging while in my scope>

A brief press and release:

About 2 seconds of exposure:

About 5-10 seconds of exposure:

And the reason I support some form of mandatory light pollution control as suggested by @Shpaget, 84 seconds at ISO 3200. SAME EXACT SPOT AS THE ABOVE IMAGES:

50 minutes ago, K^2 said:

And the kind of data you can collect with a hobby telescope you can get from small satellites.

Not really no. Ignoring the fact that once that satellite goes bad there is no way to repair it, you cannot get the wealth of data from a satellite that you can get from having hundreds or thousands of amateurs imaging the same spot of sky. A space based telescope may be free from atmospheric issues and light pollution, but, it cannot bring in the same kind of data that crowd sourced amateur data can. I will not deny the fact that images from as an example say Hubble are powerful, beautiful and provide magnitudes of data that even the highest end rig in the amateur realm can provide. But, that is not the point I am making. I wish to be frank here, saying what you did about the data from the amateur can be gotten from a satellite is well, right in line with: 

 

9 hours ago, AlamoVampire said:

3. <self snipped as the first portion of point 3 is not what I am pointing towards here> More-so when folks hand wave the issue away by suggesting we move to only space based observation. 

Which is to me, an aspiring astrophotographer kinda insulting to me. It feels almost as if I and my fellow enthusiasts are being dismissed out of hand. I am not trying to imply that is what YOU are doing, but, that is the feeling that I usually get when that sort of sentiment is presented.

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Edited November 2, 2020 by AlamoVampire

[kerbiloid]

To be proud of city lights in early XXI == To be proud of city smokes in early XX

Both should be supressed. One - by pipe filters, another one - by light filters. Whatever it were:  some active physical supression, artificial cloud, a thin blanket.

***

Also it's important to hide from extraterrestrial observers.

[Shpaget]

4 hours ago, K^2 said:

Sure. Lets greatly increase traffic fatalities and probably crime rates at least in some places just so that a few people can enjoy their hobby.

Come on, light pollution is a problem that affects far more things than just a hobby for a few people.

Regarding crime rate, yes, there is correlation there, but let's deal with that problem by fixing the source of crimes.

Yeah, I agree, it's difficult and would be dangerous to remove all streetlights, but they can be resigned to be directed with much more sense, in downward direction. They can also be significantly reduced in brightness, or even installed only above pedestrian paths for safety, while roads can cope with far lower illumination. Cars usually have more than decent enough headlights for their own use and for advertising their presence to other motorists.

That being said, I have absolutely no compassion for decorative lighting. Look at this abomination:

This can be seen all over the world, with prime offenders being religious and government buildings. Ban hammer all their lightbulbs into scrap, as far as I'm concerned. Vanity at its worst. Ugly, wasteful, harmful.

[tater]

4 hours ago, AlamoVampire said:

Which is to me, an aspiring astrophotographer kinda insulting to me. It feels almost as if I and my fellow enthusiasts are being dismissed out of hand. I am not trying to imply that is what YOU are doing, but, that is the feeling that I usually get when that sort of sentiment is presented.

Yeah, I'm dismissing enthusiasts out of hand.

Actual astronomy I'm concerned about, but I'm open to the fact that the same company currently launching a large constellation is also working on reducing the cost to orbit by a couple orders of magnitude, which should presumably decrease the cost of space-based astronomy.

 

6 hours ago, AlamoVampire said:

Just because we can develop a future tech, should we?

Yes.

Like I said, I'd take Expanse-like space travel tomorrow, not a second thought.

Take clouds and the daytime sky. As much as I get annoyed by clouds at night when I want to see stars, I love them in the daytime. Here in NM where there is enough moisture for clouds, we tend to also end up with contrails. Should people's love of beautiful cloud formations be protected by banning air traffic? In years before the idiotic response to COVID, my sky was constantly criss-crossed with aircraft, should we double down and all stay home forever? Walk, and take ships—except people who sail might noit want their pristine oceanscapes marred by large liners, so maybe ban ships? Where does it end?

 

34 minutes ago, Shpaget said:

That being said, I have absolutely no compassion for decorative lighting. Look at this abomination:

I don't think decorative lighting plays a substantial role in light pollution. Street lights are the larger concern. Lately the move to LEDs I see as a problem vs sodium vapor (which can be filtered).

[Shpaget]

20 minutes ago, tater said:

I don't think decorative lighting plays a substantial role in light pollution. Street lights are the larger concern. Lately the move to LEDs I see as a problem vs sodium vapor (which can be filtered).

Perhaps not in total amount, but certainly in the ratio of pollution/usefulness, and even in pollution/power, since they are usually pointed up and a good deal of the light completely misses the structure. They are the prime candidate for blanket ban.

[tater]

40 minutes ago, Shpaget said:

Perhaps not in total amount, but certainly in the ratio of pollution/usefulness, and even in pollution/power, since they are usually pointed up and a good deal of the light completely misses the structure. They are the prime candidate for blanket ban.

I have some solar-powered up-lights on bushes at my house. Otherwise, when I look out the windows at night they look like black mirrors. If you tried to ban them, I'd do it anyway. Honestly, banning almost anything makes me want to do it, even if I never had an interest in doing it before. I would bet that most people would likely agree. Better to push for light in a range that can easily be filtered for that use case.

'Enjoy your lights, but use this specific kind so it can preserve astronomy" is an easier sell than "Hey you, yeah, all 100,000 of you! You can't have lights on your own property, there are like 10 people trying to do astrophotography over there who think you are all awful people!"

 

Edited November 2, 2020 by tater

[Silavite]

Somewhat coincidentally, I wrote my final essay for my engineering ethics class on the subject of the ethics of satellite mega constellations. I don't know if it will provide much insight, but I figured that I'd share it. (It was written in June, so some of the info may be dated.)

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1s1HlhoYJwKk92p9XqIn7J2F19XJ9T-BuQGocxwAOhhE/edit?usp=sharing

[kerbiloid]

1 hour ago, tater said:

I have some solar-powered up-lights on bushes at my house. Otherwise, when I look out the windows at night they look like black mirrors. 

That's much better

Spoiler

 

1 hour ago, tater said:

If you tried to ban them, I'd do it anyway.

I see, what you do in the shadows!

Spoiler

And then:

Spoiler

 

 

[AlamoVampire]

6 hours ago, tater said:

Yes.

Like I said, I'd take Expanse-like space travel tomorrow, not a second thought.

That is reckless. Beyond reckless. To instantaneously transform our society is irresponsible and reckless. I will not blithely charge into future tech simply because we can. The cost to our humanity, to our history and to our ability to see the wonders around us must not be sacrificed just to appeal to the garish need for new tech now.

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[tater]

1 hour ago, AlamoVampire said:

That is reckless. Beyond reckless. To instantaneously transform our society is irresponsible and reckless. I will not blithely charge into future tech simply because we can. The cost to our humanity, to our history and to our ability to see the wonders around us must not be sacrificed just to appeal to the garish need for new tech now.

LOL.

I'd instantly transform society with cheap space travel in a heartbeat. (where"instantly" is defined as taking ~60-70 years, since we've been discussing moving mass amounts of stuff to space for  about that long)

 

[AlamoVampire]

@tater instantly is more correctly and accurately defined as over night, in an INSTANT as it were. What we have 60 or 70 years when im like 100-110 years old is not instant, thus 100% irrelevant to our discussion. I give you the most apt quote. Taken from Star Trek the Next Generation season 4 episode 15 First Contact. Captain Pucard is speaking with Chancellor Durken: 

“PICARD: We will leave and never return. Chancellor, we are here only to help guide you into a new era. I can assure you we will not interfere in the natural development of your planet. That is, in fact, our Prime Directive. 
DURKEN: I can infer from that directive that you do not intend to share all this exceptional technology with us. 
PICARD: That is not the whole meaning, but it is part of it. 
DURKEN: Is this your way of maintaining superiority? 
PICARD: Chancellor, to instantly transform a society with technology would be harmful and it would be destructive.”

I have provided a portion of the scene in question and bold-underlined the portion of importance. This rings more true today in 2020 given the current...climate...than it did 30 years ago when that script was written. Instantaneous change as you suggest “snap your fingers” is a catastrophically bad idea.

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[tater]

Don’t care about Star Trek, particularly crappy, PC TNG.

my point is that we’ve been trying to get stuff cheaply to space for decades, so overnight would be fine by me, we should have had reusable heavy lifters in the 1970s, Phil Bono style.

So yeah, I’d snap my fingers tonight.