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)
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.
Satellites aren't going to beat cables
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.
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? :-)
Really? link or something?
Blocking usability of LEO is not ideal, but blocking launches is really not the risk.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome#Implications
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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.