We of course should weight benefits and drawbacks. At least low-orbit Earth satellites aren't too long lived.
Actually it does, because Starlink is intended to fund Starship development and Mars colonization.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24058911
Just to put this into perspective a bit: every little bit of civilization in Iceland, every nail, every staple, every fruit, every tool has to be flown in or brought in by boat. Everything. And Iceland is a place that compared to Mars is paradise. The only things they have plenty of are energy, fish and sheep. And on Mars you wouldn't even have that.
It's just too silly to take serious.
Musk and Hughes have a lot in common. They are both genius, wealthy, capable and at times a bit batty. I'm fine with Elon being a bit batty, if that give us electric cars, reusable rockets and more. But I'm not buying into the cult. Starlink is borderline for me. I can see the utility. But the idea that space can be commercialized with such total disregard for what effectively is our largest commons is simply wrong to me.
These aren't visible to human naked eye. Just try and go see them. They already cover the sky in a grid with one of them above the horizon everywhere at all times but just with low density at the moment. I've tried several times and they are not visible.
> So, let's stop the clock for a bit until we have a much better idea of what the impact of all this littering will be
This isn't littering. These are controlled satellites that can be de-orbited at will at any time (and several have been already that had some technical problems with them).
This is now presented as a fact we will have to live with and if you are against 10's of thousands of orbital satellites you are now - according to you - immediately against progress. This obviously isn't the case.
So, let's stop the clock for a bit until we have a much better idea of what the impact of all this littering will be and whether or not there is something that can be done about it before we end up with a situation that is out of control. SpaceX is not the world, LEO is not US property and whether or not low cost satellite access is such a good thing that we should give up easy access to visible light astronomy is not a given.
This has nothing to do with 'taking to the stars', 'making the universe a more interesting place' or 'upgrading our dreams'. It is a simple commercial proposition.