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Top-level
 Why do they have to be in such a dense orbit? Why do they need 42,000 of them?! They are launching more into this same super dense orbit and we're supposed to just trust that their "autonomous collision avoidance system" will be good enough to keep going at higher and higher densities? There's an opportunity for error about every 30 seconds. One small mistake and we're in Kessler Syndrome, no more LEO satellites for decades. 24 comments
"Oh don't worry, SpaceX has amazing engineers! They know what they're doing!" Well yes, they're amazing. But they definitely make giant mistakes. Like... you know... dropping hundreds of pounds of debris from a "fully demisable" spacecraft by my house. Whoopsie. SpaceX, please don't whoopsie us into Kessler Syndrome.  @sundogplanets And SpaceX is just the first to scale up to this massive a constellation. Isn't this going to be even more of a mess when (failing) satellites from different constellations tumble through each other? I wonder if with so many objects it's even possible to coordinate being operators?   @sundogplanets 0.03% of the population. While most people are going to have better options. And even those in remote areas are going to have better options... And not at a cost that is amazingly accessible, so the "revolutionary" doesn't stick. And I doubt would stay low once there's a captive audience to gouge... Oh, wait, I think I know why this thing exists.  @Rhodium103 @sundogplanets It’s also the only part of SpaceX or really any of Musk’s companies that’s on track to turn a profit, and they’re probably going to fuck that up, too. At the risk of running afoul of the part of the engineer's code of ethics that says "no disparaging other engineers or the profession", and while pointing to the part about holding the safety of the public paramount in our designs, I'll just say: There's more to being an "amazing engineer" than delivering "value" for your employer's shareholders. I got asked to speak to a Very Important group of people about the many terrible environmental consequences of satellite megaconstellations (collisions, atmospheric pollution, ground casualty risks) and I was wavering because it's a really really long trip and it has to be in-person (I guess because Very Important people can't Zoom or something...) Anyway. This calculation made my decision for me. I'm going to yell at the most important people I can, hopefully it will help. (More details later)  @sundogplanets ain't there a military purpose behind such a crazy satellite density? Oof way too many replies for me to go through here, and while some are hilarious, some of them are really frustrating (yes, I know how orbits work, and I'm pretty darn good at math). Signing off for a bit to focus on some other ways to teach people about the terrifyingly bad situation in orbit.  @sundogplanets @sundogplanets I know people who work at the Starlink factory. They’re injured constantly. The place is a poorly run mess. The whole thing needs to be shut down. Only good news is they’re years behind schedule on the 42,000 number and unlikely to catch up  @sundogplanets Well, the threat of an ablation cascade plus the gradual destruction of Earth's ozone layer caused by these pointless megaconstellations gives us two options: either we can push our lawmakers to regulate this crap out of existence, or we're going to issue the saltiest TOLD YOU SO when things inevitably go wrong.  @Legit_Spaghetti @sundogplanets Are there any existing regulations/treaties about this? @FediThing @Legit_Spaghetti @sundogplanets  We should also note that there is no real need for this whole project. There are alternatives to provide internet access to remote communities, including (much fewer) satellites in high orbits. @loko @sundogplanets One <1km pass every 30s is for the whole globe and the whole constellation of thousands of satellites, the density at any given place is still one per several hundreds kilometers or more. |
Gregory's Server
@sundogplanets Also just the orbital decay leading to however many of them burning up in the atmophere daily is going to completely destroy the ozone layer in a couple of years/decades. So that's nice also.