Any journalists want to write an article about all the environmental costs of the more than 10,000 Starlinks that are now in orbit?
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@sundogplanets
I always ask myself: Why so many?@Becovich That is a question no one has ever made SpaceX answer.
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What percentage of those articles were generated by "AI"? 50%? 80?
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@sundogplanets SpaceX - or rather #Starlink - is my lifeline, and the lifeline of many thousands of others living in a rural location with no proper broadband service. #Spacex may be "awful" but it has improved my quality of life immeasurably.
@drewtowler can you not instead get ViaSat or HughesNet?
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Any journalists want to write an article about all the environmental costs of the more than 10,000 Starlinks that are now in orbit? All I'm seeing are breathless articles mindlessly worshiping That Awful Billionaire for crossing the 10,000 satellite mark.
Every single one of those will come down in an uncontrolled reentry. That's a lot of metal in the atmosphere, and a lot of dice-rolling to see if any more pieces will make it to the ground.
SpaceX is truly awful.
I remember those passing scenes in Wall-E with Earth literally covered in space trash. Little me found the surface wasteland plausible but space junk—couldn't be that bad, right?
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Any journalists want to write an article about all the environmental costs of the more than 10,000 Starlinks that are now in orbit? All I'm seeing are breathless articles mindlessly worshiping That Awful Billionaire for crossing the 10,000 satellite mark.
Every single one of those will come down in an uncontrolled reentry. That's a lot of metal in the atmosphere, and a lot of dice-rolling to see if any more pieces will make it to the ground.
SpaceX is truly awful.
Also, those satellites are what allows Putin to help Iran target us.
Not an environmental problem, but worth mentioning. -
@sundogplanets SpaceX - or rather #Starlink - is my lifeline, and the lifeline of many thousands of others living in a rural location with no proper broadband service. #Spacex may be "awful" but it has improved my quality of life immeasurably.
As @sundogplanets wrote: Satellite internet works fine with far fewer satellites in higher orbits.
Or more places could have fiber run out to local wireless towers.
Instead of giving still more money to Elon Musk's scam.
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@sundogplanets
I always ask myself: Why so many?Starlink is designed to try to sell slightly-lower-latency links at a steep premium.
To do that, the Starlinks need to fly low.
To fly low and provide continuous coverage, SpaceX needs a lot of them.
Versus Iridium managing with 76 active satellites.
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Any journalists want to write an article about all the environmental costs of the more than 10,000 Starlinks that are now in orbit? All I'm seeing are breathless articles mindlessly worshiping That Awful Billionaire for crossing the 10,000 satellite mark.
Every single one of those will come down in an uncontrolled reentry. That's a lot of metal in the atmosphere, and a lot of dice-rolling to see if any more pieces will make it to the ground.
SpaceX is truly awful.
@sundogplanets I am worried that at some point it could create a Kessler Effect
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Any journalists want to write an article about all the environmental costs of the more than 10,000 Starlinks that are now in orbit? All I'm seeing are breathless articles mindlessly worshiping That Awful Billionaire for crossing the 10,000 satellite mark.
Every single one of those will come down in an uncontrolled reentry. That's a lot of metal in the atmosphere, and a lot of dice-rolling to see if any more pieces will make it to the ground.
SpaceX is truly awful.
I assume you saw the article that said the US government had listened to the richest man on earth when he said cleaning up his space junk (in this case, rocket stages abandoned in decaying orbits) was too expensive and he couldn't afford it, and now the proposed regulations to make billionaires clean up after themselves has gone back to the drawing board?
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@drewtowler Absolutely understand that. SpaceX could provide internet access without destroying the night sky and the atmosphere if they would focus on providing service with fewer satellites that have longer operating lifetimes. That is the engineering challenge they need to rise to.
@sundogplanets Not going to argue - but that's out of my control.
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As @sundogplanets wrote: Satellite internet works fine with far fewer satellites in higher orbits.
Or more places could have fiber run out to local wireless towers.
Instead of giving still more money to Elon Musk's scam.
@michael_w_busch @sundogplanets OK, let me know when that becomes available in my location and I'll certainly consider it. I suspect we'll be waiting longer than my anticipated lifespan.
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@drewtowler can you not instead get ViaSat or HughesNet?
@johnlogic When I bought my Starlink kit, I could not get either of those. Having invested in that kit, I'm obviously not going to ditch it. Not to mention the time spent routing cables through walls and roof voids. So whether I can _now_ get ViaSat or HughesNet is immaterial.
EDIT: On checking, Viasat and HughesNet have completely unacceptable latency anyway. -
Any journalists want to write an article about all the environmental costs of the more than 10,000 Starlinks that are now in orbit? All I'm seeing are breathless articles mindlessly worshiping That Awful Billionaire for crossing the 10,000 satellite mark.
Every single one of those will come down in an uncontrolled reentry. That's a lot of metal in the atmosphere, and a lot of dice-rolling to see if any more pieces will make it to the ground.
SpaceX is truly awful.
@sundogplanets maybe @georgemonbiot.bsky.social is interested (Topic Environment and starlink pollution)?
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Any journalists want to write an article about all the environmental costs of the more than 10,000 Starlinks that are now in orbit? All I'm seeing are breathless articles mindlessly worshiping That Awful Billionaire for crossing the 10,000 satellite mark.
Every single one of those will come down in an uncontrolled reentry. That's a lot of metal in the atmosphere, and a lot of dice-rolling to see if any more pieces will make it to the ground.
SpaceX is truly awful.
@sundogplanets would you be interested in writing an OP-ED on this for tantvnews.com?
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Any journalists want to write an article about all the environmental costs of the more than 10,000 Starlinks that are now in orbit? All I'm seeing are breathless articles mindlessly worshiping That Awful Billionaire for crossing the 10,000 satellite mark.
Every single one of those will come down in an uncontrolled reentry. That's a lot of metal in the atmosphere, and a lot of dice-rolling to see if any more pieces will make it to the ground.
SpaceX is truly awful.
@sundogplanets I remember when I was a kid you looked up in the sky and seeing a satellite was something cool and unusual.
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@sundogplanets would you be interested in writing an OP-ED on this for tantvnews.com?
@Tantvnews I've co-authored two in the last few weeks about satellite pollution in general that can be reprinted CC-BY, and I am writing another one. I don't have time to write one specifically for you, sorry.
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@simon @sundogplanets IPO on June 9. Gotta get all the material out to ensure this is a massive flop by then.
@foxxtrot @simon @sundogplanets That's a really good insight. If enough people raise hell and the IPO crashes and burns (much like their stupid satellites), that would be a DELIGHTFUL way to end this nonsense.
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@foxxtrot @simon @sundogplanets That's a really good insight. If enough people raise hell and the IPO crashes and burns (much like their stupid satellites), that would be a DELIGHTFUL way to end this nonsense.
@Legit_Spaghetti Sadly, I suspect there are enough Marks, hoodwinked by Musk, that the IPO won't be a *complete* disaster (though their projected valuation is outright lunacy), but here's hoping it's a flop that destroys the Cult of Musk forever.
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@sundogplanets I am worried that at some point it could create a Kessler Effect
@alexf24 @sundogplanets Yeah, I'm not really worried about reentry given how small each one is, but this is a much more pressing concern.
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@sundogplanets I remember when I was a kid you looked up in the sky and seeing a satellite was something cool and unusual.
I remember... I used to take my binoculars and head out into the middle of nowhere to catch glimpses of the ISS when it was still new.
