Starship is going to launch the equivalent of 1000 Hubble’s with 10 years.

You’re thinking too small, this constellation is part of what enables you to someday go to space yourself and have your own observatory on the dark side of the moon etc.

Not everyone wants to go space, there is something nice about enjoying the stars from your own backyard or on a camping trip. I think this comes close to space pollution if they aren’t able to provide a tangible benefit to people on earth.

Surely inexpensive global high speed internet access is a tangible benefit. Even seems to offer a tangible benefit on that camping trip by increasing likelihood that you could contact someone in an emergency. Cell towers for hiker safety could be put in current dead zones. Not to mention as pointed out elsewhere, these aren't visible all the time so you could still enjoy the stars.

I fully agree with respect to global high speed internet. However, I'd point out that if being able to contact someone in an emergency even in remote locations is someone's concern, that technology already exists in the form of personal locator beacons (which can also send and receive texts) using existing satellites.

Sure. Absolutely existing geosync satellites exist, the iridium network exists. They are not very accessible tech, and neither would be used to stand up an emergency tower. And maybe it's just my impression, but it seems when I read stories of someone lost in the wilderness, it's often people who don't take precautions, are casual hikers. And for them, having a cellphone that functions, with maps, text and calls, could be lifesaving.

As a personal note, a relative was doing coastal sailing (US east coast, bahamas), and while he wanted access to the iridium network for maps and emergency contact, he couldn't afford the data rates and device costs. He settled for downloaded maps and checking in by cellphone when possible. So, if he was lost out in the crossing to the bahamas, there would have been no contact. (yes, I realise that at present, Starlink is not yet offering ability to move around with your dish, so RV and boats are out of luck for now, apart from the possibility that more towers may spring up)

Something like the Garmin inReach is pretty accessible these days. A few hundred dollars for the device and as low as about $12/month for the subscription. If I did a lot of solo stuff in out of the way areas, I'd probably have one.

That said, I agree that casual hikers doing dumb things and getting lost definitely happens. But cell phone reception is hardly a panacea. Just because you can call 911 doesn't mean that someone is going to come get you if the conditions are bad. I actually have very mixed feeling with the newish assumption a lot of people have that their cell phone will always work and that, worst case, they can just call for help.

This is more expensive, slower internet access for most people, no?

Satellites aren't going to beat cables

Their latencies are supposedly lower than the ocean cables - low enough that HFT is investigating. https://old.reddit.com/r/Starlink/comments/itlrjc/starlink_l...

Their costs are moderately higher than existing broadband right now (if you aren't rural), but in news articles I read in past as they upgrade the satellites for more simultaneous connections the goal is to have a lot more subscribers at much lower costs.

Also, for remote areas of the world it would be a choice between this and nothing else.

Even if you were sharing the starlink dish with a few thousand other households to bring the cost down to affordable for your area, you'd still have an improvement over nothing.

>I think this comes close to space pollution if they aren’t able to provide a tangible benefit to people on earth.

But they are providing a tangible benefit to people on Earth. Maybe it doesn't benefit you personally or you think the costs outweigh those benefits so it is a net negative, but let's not pretend that there is zero benefit.

> But they are providing a tangible benefit to people on Earth. Maybe it doesn't benefit you personally or you think the costs outweigh those benefits so it is a net negative, but let's not pretend that there is zero benefit.

I don't know the answer and yet think the way we have normally answered such cost/benefit decisions is through government. Currently, we don't have a government where people make decisions based on what's best for the planet or at even just for all of humanity. Perhaps one could argue the UN or other global agreements, but I don't think, in their current forms, they have the ultimate say.

Maybe we need an Earth Council? :-)

Starlink has virtually no impact on naked eye observation of the sky with sunshades.

> Starship is going to launch the equivalent of 1000 Hubble’s with 10 years.

Really? link or something?

It also could easily be part of what ensures that nobody goes to space in the next 50+ years while kestler syndrome takes over

> However, even a catastrophic Kessler scenario at LEO would pose minimal risk for launches continuing past LEO, or satellites travelling at medium Earth orbit (MEO) or geosynchronous orbit (GEO) [0]

Blocking usability of LEO is not ideal, but blocking launches is really not the risk.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome#Implications

Not really...Either Starlink and the rest fail, and the skies clear up again shortly as failed projects get de-orbited. Or they succeed and there will be many established bases in space for research and telescopes.

It's not like the funds from Starlink are going to be used to build casinos in the desert or something. Every $ earned is going back into building better space tech. So if it fails no problem for space views from Earth, and if it succeeds the result is cheap access to space views from space.

Could you link to any sources that claim Starlink profits will be used to facilitate astronomy research? Quite an absurd assumption without proof tbh.

AFAIK SpaceX and Elon have said Starlink profits will fund their Mars exploration plans. That effectively hands-on astronomy! ;-)

On a more serious note, if you get the infrastructure going to get a lot of hardware and people to Mars, then getting some more modern space observatories should be quite easy.

First, I never said that. Please read my comment again. Second, Starlink exists to fund the start of a permanent self-sustaining colony of millions of people on Mars. I'm not sure how they would get to that without also doing and supporting a lot of astronomy research along the way.

Your assumptions continue but to be unsupported by sources, but rather, blind fanboyism.

Do you have proof that Starlink profits will go towards funding a Mars colony? Or that research into astronomical observations will be required for building a space colony? Or even if so, the overlap somehow helps astronomers on earth?

> Do you have proof that Starlink profits will go towards funding a Mars colony?

Funding transportation to Mars to enable establishing the colony, and the question should be, do you have evidence this is not the case? Because this was what Musk/SpaceX have been saying since Starlink was barely an idea, and I haven't seen anyone prove they're lying.

> Every $ earned is going back into building better space tech.

And to the shareholders. Who may choose to build casinos in the desert with that money.

> ... and if it succeeds the result is cheap access to space views from space.

It's more accurate to say it will give us access to space views from space at the highest cost that the market will bear. I assure you this cost will be well above what 95% of the world will be able to afford for quite some time. After all, much of the world can't even afford regular flight.

> And to the shareholders. Who may choose to build casinos in the desert with that money.

There's a reason SpaceX isn't public, and it's precisely that. Starlink was, since its conception, and still is, a way to fund the R&D for opening access to Mars.

That's until musk needs to bail out his family by buying one of their failing businesses like with solar city

What is a higher priority: astronomers' imaging or rural internet access?

Rural internet access for a minority. Granted, it's awesome for those that now get high speed internet for the first time, but if rather we didn't pretend this was globally relevant.

Pricing eliminates starlink for poorer regions where it'd be needed most (by a factor of at least 10). Personally, id really rather avoid it because who in their right mind would trade eu privacy for us rules by switching to a us based isp.

That's a subjective question. Different people value different things and have differing preferences and priorities. At best, it depends on our goals. This is why these things need to be dealt with publicly and democratically.

> That's a subjective question.

Its not subjective question though, lot things (including working with the govt services) are moving online even in India. Having reasonably good internet connectivity is now a necessity.

First, if a state requires internet connectivity then it's their responsibility to provide it. Second, just because somone's being forced to need something doesn't mean they don't ultimately value something else more. Third, even valuing your survival over destruction of the commons is a subjective preference, so yeah, it's always subjective. Anyway, this all needs to be worked out demoratically with all information and options, not by authoritarians forcing limited choices onto people.

> if a state requires internet connectivity then it's their responsibility to provide it.

That sounds good on paper but it does now work like that in real life, in India or the US people who live far away from metro regions, providing connectivity is not an important topic for getting votes so you wont see politicians fighting for it. So Democracy is not going to solve that.

I dont know about you but if there is a question about my survival then its not subjective to me, maybe you dont value your life but I do.

LEO satellites like StarLink are in earths shadow most of the night. Which means you can avoid unlimited satellites, you just need to wait longer to start and end well before dawn.

I have seen StarLink satellites with my naked eye many times and confirmed with the Dark Sky app, past midnight as well.

For astronomy, aim up. The closer to the horizon the longer their visible before and after sunset. The sky rotates at night and at different times of the year so the overwhelming majority of things are still observable without any satellites.

Also, this is almost exclusively about about wide angel shots. You can still do ultra long exposure closeups of various things, at worse you might need to cover the shutter for a few seconds while a satellite moves into and out of the shot but even that’s generally avoidable.

But what if something I want to click is near the horizon? For example trying to get a shot of the sky with mountains in the frame. Avoiding the parts where the satellites are is not a viable solution most of the times.

I agree it’s an going to show up in nighttime photography. You need better timing, manually remove them from photos, or take extra shots etc.

I am simply saying it’s not a major impediment for amateur Astronomy as you can time things to capture a clean picture of most objects as long as you time them so their above the horizon.

Also, if you want to aim for a mountain in long exposure all the stars are going to be smeared in the photo. If it’s short exposure their going to look like just another star.

Use Photoshop. Look I appreciate that astronomers, whether professional or hobbyists, may be inconvenienced by more satellites. But the odds that the public/governments will prioritize this over potentially much better rural broadband connectivity is approximately zero.

Things rotating up is only true for stuff that is close to the Eastern or Western horizon. And yes different times of the year help a lot, but there is plenty of objects that are only visible a bit over the horizon at the best of times. Source: have help a radio astronomer with source visibility calculations.

Sure, and Polaris is never visible from Australia etc. But, it’s a much weaker argument to say these constellations limit observations by less than 10%.

The reality is there is real impact, but no where near as bad as many generally portrayed. Imagine some senator canceling funding for new ground based telescopes because they heard these satellites would render them useless.

I have heard astronomers estimating it at up to 30% of the observing time for existing optical telescopes. Note that this is the instrument class that has t to 20 times as many proposals as they can actually observe.

Yep, and others say it’s less than 1%. Neither of them are lying, but their talking about different kinds of observations.

My assumption is scheduling should solve most of these issues in terms of large instruments.

Professional astronomers observe during the daytime too, using radio or microwave. Mega-constellations impinge on their ability to do science, especially for techniques like VLBI, where there's no obvious way to remove satellites from the data.

That applies to all satellites not simply large arrays. Large constellations all on the same frequencies aren’t even close to 1:1 as bad as normal satellites.

> at what cost?

Amateur astrophotography?

> but at what cost?

A decent portion of exposures will have to be thrown out, and some types of sky surveys will only be possible from space.

That isn’t strictly true. There are changes to the design of the instrument that the makers could’ve incorporated that would be better at dealing with the effects of satellite trails which has been a thing since Sputnik. They chose not to implement that capability, even though satellite constellations and proposed mega constellations have been a thing since well before Vera Rubin was designed.