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Top-level
 "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. 14 comments
   @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 |
Gregory's Server
@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?