But also, we cannot have so many god-damn satellites polluting the night sky. Starlink should never have been allowed to get up there as a private actor in the first place.
It’s a tricky situation, as international cooperation would be extremely difficult to maintain, especially during situations like the Ukraine war. But having private companies compete to fill the orbit with space waste as soon as possible is hardly a good solution either.
The states has been moving towards authoritarian corporate control for a long time though. The freedom cities controlled by big tech, setup in whatever country they want, operating outside ‘local’ regulations, with services via satellite and protection via US military, very much fits with what Starlink has done. Techs push for ‘rare earth’ (uranium) is likely about powering these sorts of cities, without needing to rely on a ‘countries’ power grid – to make them autonomous and impervious to local issues.
A few big military powers to allow for the “constant enemy” setup similar to 1984, with a corporate backend to prop up oligarchs that can act based on the whims of the oligarch without fear of repudiation.
Authoritarianism is on a big upswing lately, and egalitarian ideals are busy eating themselves alive – mired in demographic politics. And the conspiracy gremlin in me says it’s been intentional on the part of the democrats/progressive sorts, as they’re just as beholden to ‘rich’ authoritarian leaning tech people as the right wing/republican sorts.
Things in space don’t veer wildly out of control when they fail. They stay pretty much in their existing orbit.
It’s not like these satellites have big thrusters or engines just propelling them constantly around the planet. They’re in a state of free fall. They’re just also moving sideways fast enough that the earth also falls away from them at around the same speed that they are falling towards it.
Lower orbits have far more atmospheric drag, and any debris in those orbits will simply slow down enough to stop missing the planet.
So we will have a bunch of trash circulating the earth, left there by opporunistic billionaires. No thank you. What they have done to the night sky alone is a crime against all of us as far as I’m concerned.
And to think that lower orbit is not interesting any more now that NASA wants to build a telescope on the moon is beyond me.
As the headlins in the article I linked earlier kindly informs us, half of all active satellites are now from SpaceX. And it’s increasing fast. If other companies enter the scene and start competing, the earth will be orbited by a shitload of useful satelites launched into space by billionaires with a penis complex.
Governments are supposed to provide services for their population. Some of these needs might justify launching satellites. It is not unproblematic, and I would rather see it being governed by an international organization, but at least it’s being done on behalf of people.
Companies launch them to make a profit for the fat wallets of their stakeholders and CEOs.
They are not the same. Pretending they are is, as you so nicely put it, weird.
But also, we cannot have so many god-damn satellites polluting the night sky. Starlink should never have been allowed to get up there as a private actor in the first place.
It’s a tricky situation, as international cooperation would be extremely difficult to maintain, especially during situations like the Ukraine war. But having private companies compete to fill the orbit with space waste as soon as possible is hardly a good solution either.
The states has been moving towards authoritarian corporate control for a long time though. The freedom cities controlled by big tech, setup in whatever country they want, operating outside ‘local’ regulations, with services via satellite and protection via US military, very much fits with what Starlink has done. Techs push for ‘rare earth’ (uranium) is likely about powering these sorts of cities, without needing to rely on a ‘countries’ power grid – to make them autonomous and impervious to local issues.
A few big military powers to allow for the “constant enemy” setup similar to 1984, with a corporate backend to prop up oligarchs that can act based on the whims of the oligarch without fear of repudiation.
Authoritarianism is on a big upswing lately, and egalitarian ideals are busy eating themselves alive – mired in demographic politics. And the conspiracy gremlin in me says it’s been intentional on the part of the democrats/progressive sorts, as they’re just as beholden to ‘rich’ authoritarian leaning tech people as the right wing/republican sorts.
There’s so much more room out there than there is here on this finite planet.
There are a number of concerns, from hindering science by blocking pictures taken by Hubble to flat out malfunctioning and crashing into the ISS. For every new satellite the risk increases. https://www.sciencenews.org/article/satellites-spacex-problem-space-pollution
So? The ISS is due to be decommissioned soon and the HST has been failing from orbit for a while now.
Telescopes on the far side of the moon would see far far more than any telescope in earth orbit and especially any on the ground.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_Crater_Radio_Telescope
Things in space don’t veer wildly out of control when they fail. They stay pretty much in their existing orbit.
It’s not like these satellites have big thrusters or engines just propelling them constantly around the planet. They’re in a state of free fall. They’re just also moving sideways fast enough that the earth also falls away from them at around the same speed that they are falling towards it.
Lower orbits have far more atmospheric drag, and any debris in those orbits will simply slow down enough to stop missing the planet.
So we will have a bunch of trash circulating the earth, left there by opporunistic billionaires. No thank you. What they have done to the night sky alone is a crime against all of us as far as I’m concerned.
And to think that lower orbit is not interesting any more now that NASA wants to build a telescope on the moon is beyond me.
Guess it’s ok when governments leave debris by shooting at satellites, but not when businesses do?
Weird.
As the headlins in the article I linked earlier kindly informs us, half of all active satellites are now from SpaceX. And it’s increasing fast. If other companies enter the scene and start competing, the earth will be orbited by a shitload of useful satelites launched into space by billionaires with a penis complex.
Governments are supposed to provide services for their population. Some of these needs might justify launching satellites. It is not unproblematic, and I would rather see it being governed by an international organization, but at least it’s being done on behalf of people.
Companies launch them to make a profit for the fat wallets of their stakeholders and CEOs.
They are not the same. Pretending they are is, as you so nicely put it, weird.