Amazon Satellites Add To Astronomers' Worries About the Night Sky (nytimes.com) 110
Welcome to the age of the satellite megaconstellation. Within the next few years, vast networks, containing hundreds or even thousands of spacecraft, could reshape the future of Earth's orbital environment. From a report: Much of the attention on these strings of satellites has been placed on the prolific launches of SpaceX and OneWeb, but the focus is now turning to Amazon. Last month, the Federal Communications Commission approved a request by the online marketplace to launch its Project Kuiper constellation, which, like SpaceX's Starlink and OneWeb's network, aims to extend high-speed internet service to customers around the world, including to remote or underserved communities hobbled by a persistent digital divide. The Kuiper constellation would consist of 3,236 satellites. That's more than the approximately 2,600 active satellites already orbiting Earth. While Amazon's hardware is a long way from the launchpad, SpaceX has already deployed hundreds of satellites in its Starlink constellation, including 57 additional satellites that it launched on Friday. It may expand it to 12,000, or more. Facebook and Telesat could also get into the internet constellation business.
The rapid influx of satellites into low-Earth orbit has prompted pushback from professional and amateur astronomers. Starlink satellites are notorious for "photobombing" astronomical images with bright streaks, damaging the quality and reducing the volume of data that scientists collect for research. While SpaceX plans to mitigate the effects of its launches on astronomical observations, scientists and hobbyists in the community worry about the lack of regulation of constellations as more entrants such as Project Kuiper join the action. "We don't yet have any kind of industrywide guidelines," said Michele Bannister, a planetary astronomer at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand. "We don't have an industry body that's producing good corporate citizenship on the part of all of these enthusiastic companies that want to launch, and we don't have any regulatory setup in place that's providing clear guidelines back to the industry." She added, "To me, honestly, it feels like putting a bunch of planes up and then not having air traffic control."
The rapid influx of satellites into low-Earth orbit has prompted pushback from professional and amateur astronomers. Starlink satellites are notorious for "photobombing" astronomical images with bright streaks, damaging the quality and reducing the volume of data that scientists collect for research. While SpaceX plans to mitigate the effects of its launches on astronomical observations, scientists and hobbyists in the community worry about the lack of regulation of constellations as more entrants such as Project Kuiper join the action. "We don't yet have any kind of industrywide guidelines," said Michele Bannister, a planetary astronomer at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand. "We don't have an industry body that's producing good corporate citizenship on the part of all of these enthusiastic companies that want to launch, and we don't have any regulatory setup in place that's providing clear guidelines back to the industry." She added, "To me, honestly, it feels like putting a bunch of planes up and then not having air traffic control."
Is it really a big problem? (Score:3, Interesting)
Most astronomy these days is done by compositing thousands of digital images and averaging them. Will a streak in one of those images really wreck that?
The most likely result is that the composing software will evolve a feature to pick out frames to exclude from the composite image. It could even link to a realtime database of where the satellites will be.
Terrestrial light pollution is much more problematic (and getting worse every day).
Re: Is it really a big problem? (Score:2)
Perhaps Earth based radio astronomy becomes increasingly difficult?
Space junk is likely the major actual problem. The probabilities of satellites colliding with each other or with other random junk already there slowly and surely increases.
There already was a case last year where ESA satellite had to change its position to reduce collision probability with a starlink satellite (Starlink refused to move). The safety margins are tightening.
Re: (Score:3)
xkcd 1022
Re: (Score:2)
Possible bug- but also possible feature. Should our activities bring unwanted attention, the bad aliens will first have to ask permission lest their UFOs get smashed entering orbit.
Re:Is it really a big problem? (Score:5, Informative)
Most astronomy these days is done by compositing thousands of digital images and averaging them. .
No it isn't.
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, it is.
And by "most" we mean "all professional and most amateur."
Re:Is it really a big problem? (Score:5, Informative)
I'm a professional astronomer.
When I work with multiple images it's because I use the individual images to derive light curves. I certainly don't want to lose my timing information by combining them all together. I rarely come across instances in the literature (i.e. ApJ, A&A, MNRAS etc.) where people are co-adding many images of the same field (certainly not "thousands").
Re: (Score:1)
Photoshop / GIMP and the clone tool. Problem solved.
Re:Is it really a big problem? (Score:5, Insightful)
The desire to create Starlink drove R&D to support cheap ass satellite launches. While $50M for a new-to-use reused Falcon 9 launch is outside the scope of a university astronomy department budget, it's certainly a lot more feasible these days to launch observation equipment into orbit, where you get a huge plethora of benefits.
If light pollution really is "killing" ground astronomy, but at the sacrifice of opening up access to LEO, I'm going to call it a win. Astronomy may just need to change to be satellite-based.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
But...I thought people were against giving law enforcement officers more access to things, much less the sky for even more surveillance of the citizenry...?
Re:Is it really a big problem? (Score:5, Insightful)
Because launching satellites into space with multiple components in an attempt to make an acceptable telescope is far easier than creating a telescope on the ground where there's a dark place.
While we're at it, forget people who want to look up at the night sky and see something as simple as Jupiter and its moon. Fuck them, right? Guess they'll just have to pay to launch themselves into space if they want to see anything celestial.
After all, who wants to see this [vox.com]? When people call 911 because they can't recognize the Milky Way [timeline.com] because they've lived in light pollution all their life, we should keep them ignorant of what's above their heads at night.
Re: (Score:3)
forget people who want to look up at the night sky and see something as simple as Jupiter and its moon.
Give me a fucking break. Even with 100k satellites you'd have absolutely no problem viewing Jupiter's moons. I was out stargazing the last few nights including looking at Jupiter. Jupiter and its moons occupy less than 1 degree of the night sky. If you broke up the sky into 100,000 1degree x 1degree grid squares And launched 1 million LEO satellites somehow only about 0.15% would be overhead at any given time. So with a million LEO satellites in the highest starlink orbit that would be about 1,500 ove
Re: (Score:2)
While we're at it, forget people who want to look up at the night sky and see something as simple as Jupiter and its moon. Fuck them, right? Guess they'll just have to pay to launch themselves into space if they want to see anything celestial.
What's with the hyperbole? If you think this will prevent somebody from observing Jupiter and the Jovian moons from his or her backyard, I suspect you've never tried it yourself, and that you're further unaware of how many more satellites this places in low earth orbit than are currently there. Even if you're imaging, if you're an amateur you absolutely are stacking images and can simply reject frames with satellites (of which there would be relatively few).
This would have a much more noticeable impact on
Re: (Score:2)
While we're at it, forget people who want to look up at the night sky and see something as simple as Jupiter and its moon. Fuck them, right? Guess they'll just have to pay to launch themselves into space if they want to see anything celestial.
With all due respect, yes, fuck them. The ultra-minority wanting to look up and see them unaided don't get to hold back the billions of people who can benefit from satellite communications.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The desire to create Starlink drove R&D to support cheap ass satellite launches.
I think you actually have it backward regarding cause and effect. Falcon 9, in its current form, wasn't developed to support Starlink, Starlink was created to support Falcon 9. The existing launch providers didn't pursue reuse because they didn't see the demand for frequent, cheap launches to amortize the development costs.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Satellite Internet is a huge problem for traditional ISPs who are used to having a monopoly. I would not be surprised to see that all these "sad astronomer" stories are being pushed by people with a monetary interest in keeping satellite Internet from displacing their monopoly.
Re: (Score:2)
We could have chosen to keep our last mile options under control, but we let them pretend "capitalism" while they actually did everything possible to prevent capitalism from happening.
This is why we can't have nice things.
Re: (Score:2)
Last mile wiring is a natural monopoly, without regulation of some sort you simply can't have a competitive free market. You can go the capitalist route and say "you have to share your last mile wiring with your competitors at the same cost you charge yourself" or you can go the traditional route of regulated utilities, or you can do the more sensible thing and make it a publicly owned non profit cooperative with an elected board.
Or you can do what our politicians do and just take the kickbacks you've earne
Re: Is it really a big problem? (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
I'm talking about well regulated capitalism with minimalist regulations. Most folks would consider a simple requirement to wire share as less onerous than full on "You have to pass all price increases past a government body" style utility regulation. Which is still capitalism itself.
Re: (Score:2)
We never even made it to parent's definition of capitalism: companies would tie each other and potential competitors up in lawsuits to prevent any competitive wires from being installed. Although honestly I agree with your point, in a rational world.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
There is already competition, Amazon is also putting up satellites. That's more competition than most Internet markets in the US.
Your words will sadly remain unmarked.
Re: (Score:3)
Nice try at reframing the story in favor of satellite internet operators. No, astronomers actually have a valid concern, as they do with all sources of light pollution.
Re: (Score:2)
Nice try serving your Comcast masters but I want satellite Internet. This thing with astronomers is blown out of proportion. Changes to city lighting would have much more of a positive effect in reducing light pollution, but you don't hear any stories about that.
Re: (Score:2)
Light pollution due to city lighting is a well-known problem with well-traveled routes to tackling it. 10000-satellite constellations are a new issue, with no legislation in place. That's why you hear more stories about this than city lighting.
The US is the only first-world country where internet is bad enough that satellite internet would be an improvement. Fix your country instead of ruining everyone's night sky.
Re: (Score:2)
In most countries internet via land line is dirt cheap and G4 is usually unexpensive, too.
It is doubtable that a satelite based internet will be similar prised.
I see options for ships, air planes and some remote areas, even if it was cheap enough to replace my landline, it likely makes playing most games impossible.
Re: (Score:2)
Most countries don't have the vast expanses of lightly populated rural areas the United States has. That has made cheap, fast Internet just a pipe-dream for many Americans. Sure, in the cities you can often find cheaper, faster connections, but they are still expensive and slow compared with countries that have better regulations. This satellite Internet will help bring the overall cost down for us here in America.
Re: (Score:2)
Interesting.
Good luck with that.
Here, by regulations, the mayour providers are forced to connect everyone.
In "former third world countries" - they simply rolled out fibers between 1990 and 2010. Thailand has 100 times faster internet than Germany, obviously for a quarter of the price.
You wont believe it, but the throughput bottleneck in my wives house is the 40MB router, the fiber is 4 GB.
Re: (Score:2)
Oh, I believe it. I travel a bit, so I know that he good old USA is not, in fact, the best at everything in the world.
Here, we have regulations and we give the big providers tax payer money to connect everyone. And then they don't, and they laugh at us, and then ask their pets in congress for more of our money, and then they spend it on hookers and blow.
Re: (Score:2)
The media really really wants to find professional astronomers who will complain about this for them, but the best they come up with is drivel like:
"We don’t have an industry body that’s producing good corporate citizenship on the part of all of these enthusiastic companies that want to launch, and we don’t have any regulatory setup in place that’s providing clear guidelines back to the industry. To me, honestly, it feels like putting a bunch of planes up and then not having air traffic control."
-- Michele Bannister, a planetary astronomer at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand.
Yeah, right; if air traffic control was run by an industry body it would not produce good corporate citizenship. Luckily, governments tell them what to do, instead. The whole idea that that would be the result of having the corporations be more involved in making rules is
Re: (Score:2)
You mean like NATCA [natca.org]? Or did you mean all that great corporate governance by companies such as BP, Exxon-Mobil, Duke Energy and a host of others [fortune.com]?
Amazon fights Unionization (Score:2)
Of course, not. That's not the real reason of Amazon getting bad press.
The real reason is the company's refusal to surrender to unions [cnbc.com]. They fought Walmart for years [huffpost.com] (with plenty of articles, some of them on Slashdot), until giving up recently [inthesetimes.com].
Now it is Amazon's turn — the science and practice of Astronomy has nothing to do with it...
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
A timed exposure will not show a fast moving satellite.
This article [businessinsider.com] and the photo [insider.com] it shows seems to indicate otherwise.
López's photo is a composite of 17 images taken in the span of 30 seconds. Each image was long exposure, meaning it captured the comet over several seconds.
Re: (Score:2)
In fact, I'd think an easy compromise would be to have all of these constellation companies band together to add a half an ounce per satellite to make *every* satellite into a digital telescope.
By the time we have a few million of them in orbit, we'll have a virtual telescope in the cloud able to provide full coverage of the entire sky available permanently.
Re: (Score:2)
Best idea I've heard on the topic yet.
Re: Is it really a big problem? (Score:2)
You end up getting streaks in all of them. It completely destroys your data.
Space telescopes (Score:3)
This should only be a problem for wide field astronomy which is best carried out in space anyway. If itâ(TM)s not wide field the chance of a satellite is minimal and you can turn off the camera for the microsecond in which the satellite will cross the field of view.
Re: (Score:2)
What do you mean, "Space telescopes"? As opposed to what? Southteranne... subteranye... subterra... underground telescopes?
Re: (Score:2)
Don't be a moron, use common sense and basic context determination skills. Space telescope means telescopes away from Earth, in space.
Re: (Score:2)
I only have a wildlife telescope, an underground telescope sounds interesting, if you can figure out the focus.
Re: (Score:1)
Benefits vs Costs. (Score:3)
I would like to see a real cost benefit analysis done to determine if a mild irritant of a satellite getting in the way of your photo, vs providing everyone access to what is happening with the Kardashians. Or is it Serious Scientific research, in which we could spot extraterrestrial threats that we may be able to fix sooner than later. vs. Providing the world with information that is shared across the world, reducing the existing social and economic barriers
I expect the proper compromise would be data given to the astronomers on where the Satellites would be and when perhaps a handy App, that will let you know when to expect a satellite to pass thru, and we can just digitally erase its blur.
Re: (Score:3)
vs providing everyone access to what is happening with the Kardashians
I'd think that should be a higher priority. That group is a more immediate threat to our well-being than an asteroid strike, and we need to keep a close eye on them. If only so that I can use them as an example to my children on how not to behave.
Re: (Score:2)
It seems that you didn't fully read the full post.
Both options have petty and useful implementations.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Benefits vs Costs. (Score:2)
Wait until they use it for night sky ads (Score:2)
How far off will it be before you will see advertisement constellations in the night sky?
Are there any laws that prevent it?
Re: (Score:2)
Interesting question. How close would the satellites need to be to one another to appear as "a grid of pixels" to people on the ground?
Let's use 12K satellites for our example. The square root of 12K is 109.544511501, let's round that down to 100x100 pixels. To use satellites as pixels, I guess they could orient the solar panels to reflect sunlight, i.e. on/off pixels, no grayscale.
The
Re: (Score:2)
Interesting question. How close would the satellites need to be to one another to appear as "a grid of pixels" to people on the ground?
Let's use 12K satellites for our example. The square root of 12K is 109.544511501, let's round that down to 100x100 pixels. To use satellites as pixels, I guess they could orient the solar panels to reflect sunlight, i.e. on/off pixels, no grayscale.
The end result would be a 100x100 pixels, black and white display floating in space. Apart from displaying a low-resolution logo, I'm not sure what you could use that for.
Apparently there already is a proposal:
https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/s... [nbcnews.com]
But I was imagining exactly what you suggested - a low-res logo. It's a constellation, not a photograph.
How many bright lights would it take to make a constellation of the Amazon smile/arrow/whatever logo?
Unpopular geek opinion (Score:3, Interesting)
So, without trying to be dismissive of astronomer's concerns, to me it seems worth it.
Communication satellites in orbit bring measurable value to people's quality of life each and every day. As best as I've been able to figure out, astronomy brings an occasionally intellectual "that's cool" moment to a few people's lives, but in any practical terms doesn't contribute to improving people's quality of life.
After we figured out how to use the position of stars and other celestial objects for navigation and timekeeping, and dispelled harmful myths about how the cosmos worked, I don't see how astronomy has further benefited civilization. I get the attraction of learning more of the mysteries of the universe, and even knowledge for knowledge sake, but when it's that versus helping people communicate more effectively/efficiently, personally I'd opt for the satellites every time.
Re: (Score:1)
besides that just used for building and verifying the most successful models in physics we have.
man are you ignorant.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
The currently useful physics model is QM which was verified by terrestrial experiment.
The kind of physics we're now exploring in space involves a lot of handwaving about dark matter and dark energy.
The most advanced physics model isn't solving problems on Earth, and it isn't even settled science.
Re: (Score:2)
The currently useful physics model is QM which was verified by terrestrial experiment.
The kind of physics we're now exploring in space involves a lot of handwaving about dark matter and dark energy.
It is a bit circular, but clearly, research that can't be done on Earth... doesn't have much utility on Earth, either. If you can't engineer an instrument to measure an effect here on Earth, how could you engineer a machine that makes use of the supposed effect?
Re: (Score:2)
You show your ignorance. One fourth of it is not quantum mechanics but quantum field theory as our most accurate model of microscopic reality....but then you miss half by ignoring the other useful model of reality for large and universe scale General Relativity. And by the even even QFT has had a huge disruption by the discovery that the fine structure constant has variation and in preferred direction in the universe.
So, you are in the ranks of those ignorant of astronomy and physics.
Re: (Score:2)
QFT is being researched with terrestrial experiments and relativity doesn't require astronomy either, experiments which prove it have actually involved satellites. So what you're willfully ignoring is that none of that shit requires a clear sky
Re: (Score:2)
More than satellites, first confirmation of GR was with astronomy and many other observations in visible light (of course with other means) since then. You haven't studied anything in astronomy or history of physics. it appears.
Re: (Score:2)
You haven't studied not being a douchebag.
Re: (Score:3)
Some deep physics research is supported or validated by studying the cosmos. Gravity lensing of light by super massive objects and observations of "dark energy" come to mind. Obviously not my forte, but the cosmos ARE a great lab if you know where and how to look.
But I overall agree with you that the benefits to humankind - bringing the Internet, with its wealth of information to satisfy intellectual curiosity, to under served areas can create a more positive good than setting back one specific field.
Re: (Score:2)
Also this is assuming a false dichotomy where we have zero astronomical research or satellite internet. You can still get shots of gravitational lensing... and have LEO constellations.
Re: (Score:2)
The thing is, this isn't just a cost analysis; the value of beauty and its benefits to human well-being are vastly underestimated in these sorts of discussions. Of course this won't make much sense to city dwellers who can't really see the sky anyway (I am in that group), but there is something profoundly human and healthy about marveling at the beauty of the night sky (or unspoiled wilderness, or an ocean, or a mountain range, or any other natural phenomenon). Even expanding knowledge and scientific progre
Re: (Score:2)
Communication satellites in orbit bring measurable value to people's quality of life each and every day.
So useful that even a tiny little tax on it could fund a giant telescope far enough out to have a good view.
Re: (Score:2)
That's a false dichotomy. The question is whether given the drawback to astronomy of providing communications via satellite, it's not better to do communications via land-based networks lik
Re: (Score:2)
We need helium for extremely important medical and scientific tests. And it's a very finite resource that we're running low on. And you want us to dramatically increase our use for communication balloons?
Balloons also require regular replacement a couple times per year. And you need 17x as many as LEO and 17x as many ground stations in 17x as many places which may or may not have good points of presence with fiber or microwave backhaul.
You'll also have balloons coming down all the time in unexpected pla
Re: (Score:2)
We are not running low on Helium.
The USA stopped storing helium for research and left it over to "the free market" to supply you with helium. That is all. The shortage is completely artificial.
And: ballon can fly with hydrogene just fine.
Re: (Score:1)
(industries) that will be adversely affected by unregulated space-sprawl.
We, as a society, need to be far more cautious with this stuff.
Remember when leaded gas was a great thing for society?
Once we realized that leaded gas was more harmful than worth it, we had to go clean up our mess!
You know there are LOTS and LOTS more:
Remember when plastics were all the craze?
N
Comment removed (Score:3)
This is a real problem ... (Score:5, Informative)
The problem is real. Not just for amateurs (like me), but rather for real professional astronomy.
During the past months, I have been seeing Starlink's satellites more and more. Often two or three in tandem, and they are very bright. Occasionally, they will also flare very brightly depending on the angle of their antenna (or solar panels, or both), and depending on the angle relative to the sun and the viewer. I recall one very bright flare when I was out observing comet NEOWISE on the 17th of July.
Just look at the Satellite Constellations page of the International Astronomical Union [iau.org], and you immediately see why this serious.
An this is an illustration [facebook.com] of how it affected someone in Spain trying to image comet NEOWISE. This made Michael Merrifield, professor of astronomy at a UK university to call out Elon Musk on it [twitter.com].
Here is more past coverage from The Verge [theverge.com], and Space News [spacenews.com]
All this with only a fraction of the satellites that are planned to go up there.
Yes, Elon Musk said he will work on the problem, and did launch one satellite with a different paint to make it less reflective. However, that is not the definitive solution that everyone is looking for, at least not yet.
There are those who think that space telescopes are the solution, but this is not the case, because:
a) There are only a few of them. Right now there is Hubble up there, and James Webb is due in 1+ years, but that is it. The rest are specialized (different wave lengths, specific missions, ...etc.)
b) For big mirrors, earth based telescopes are the only option. They are too big and too heavy to haul up there. They use adaptive optics to solve some of the atmospheric scintillation. Lookup the Giant Magellan Telescope, Extremely Large Telescope, and others that are under construction [wikipedia.org].
These telescopes cost hundreds of millions of dollars, and that is still far cheaper than space based ones. They use adaptive optics to overcome the effect of the atmosphere, and they are already in places with very good astronomical seeing.
Re: (Score:3)
AFAICS it sucks for mainly for small telescopes imaging very near objects with small "exposure" time. With long time on source and digital sensors it's just an signal processing problem. They move so fast that the moment they appear you know what they are and with large time on source the software can just ignore them.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
They also make it very very unlikely a satellite will be in view ... even with thousands of satellites, it's big sky for a couple of a couple seconds of orbit.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Wait - you want the companies to foot the bill for something they are displacing? That's like asking Henry Ford to pay unemployment to the buggy whip makers. Or the coal power plants to pay for all lung-related health issues near by.
Subsidized or at-cost launches? Perhaps. Oh wait - they've already driven down the cost of launching crap into LEO to 10% of what they were.
Re: (Score:2)
Since Elon Musk's big push seems to be scientific advancement of the species, you'd think the boy would be happy to toss on an addendum mission to his long-term Mars plan that plants a telescope in a wide enough orbit to not run into other satellite vision problems. Hell, how 'bout he just put one in orbit around one of the distant planets in system? It'll be generations upon generations before we start to clutter up those skies. And it'd be good practice at building a longer range ship.
As long as we're
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The problem is real. Not just for amateurs (like me), but rather for real professional astronomy.
Your complaints about it interfering with your hobby would sound more like real complaints and less like whining if you'd just own them, instead of trying to hang professionals off the side of your argument like christmas tree ornaments.
Imaging a comet from the surface is just entertainment. The field of the endeavor is photography, a type of art. Not astronomy. Yes, indeed, it is art that professional astronomers often are interested in, and engage in, sometimes even at work. Just as a biologist might take
Re: (Score:2)
This is a real problem. . .for YOU. And, it is VERY first world in nature. So, you couldn't get a picture without some background noise. Big whoop! I had the same "problem" trying to get a picture of myt family at the theme park.
Future fail? (Score:3)
None of this can happen if there are global networks of Internet satellites flying over everywhere and undermining geographical blocks.
If all this comes to pass, the value of global access to these satellite-IP vendors will decrease. The more that countries limit "foreign" players from their countries, the less use these satellites will be. Would the owners of satellite networks be held responsible for national firewall breaches? Would they be fined for allowing them? Would they discover that many of their most profitable customers are prohibited from using unregulated internet providers? Would they be banned from "trading" with the billions of citizens in least-favoured-nation countries?
If I was thinking of investing $$$$$ in a venture like this, I'd definitely have pause for thought.
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe for 1-way content, but you'd require an uplink as well. Phased arrays make it a bit harder to detect, but there is still a lot of signal leakage from the ground station which can be detected and triangulated if there is political will.
Re: (Score:2)
All this is happening right at the time when USA - China relations are souring. China already blocks western internet and there is talk of the USA blocking Chinese apps.
None of this can happen if there are global networks of Internet satellites flying over everywhere and undermining geographical blocks.
Radio signals can be jammed. During my time in North Korea, GPS didn't work at all, because they jam it. They jam it in the city, they jam it on the roads, they jam it at remote towns that don't even have 24/7 power. It's probably jammed country-wide. The starlink frequencies might need more transmitters to effectively jam it due to the higher frequency, but it is completely possible and some countries may do this out of the gate.
Re: (Score:2)
Then you had a cheap GPS receiver, probably in a phone.
You can onky "jam" a signal by sending "louder", or by sending from the same direction of the original sender.And if you can aim at the sattelite(s), "louder" does not work.
Simple solution (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The problem with talking about "compensation" is that it restricts the remediation to the actual problems experienced, and they might be smaller than would require a "network of orbital telescopes" to remediate. In fact, this is certainly true.
And before deciding they're "rich enough to foot the bill," you have to complete an exhaustive list of all the different things that you would want to have them fund if you thought they were rich enough to foot the bill. Then you'll be able to see how much riches coul
Can't wait for space billboards (Score:2)
Functionality assumed (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
They will all require thousands of ground stations.
Surface area of land on earth is 148.3m sq km.
Surface are of coverage at 500km is about 750k sq km.
148,300k / 750k = 197 for every square inch of earth's surface. Assuming $10m per uplink station that's $2B to connect every person on earth including all of Antarctica and Greenland and the Mongolian Steppe.
Ground stations are not going to be the limiting factor for viability.
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Good to start complaining now... (Score:2)
Just wait till Google, Facebook, Microsoft, AT&T, Verizon, Tencent, Baidu, etc. put up 10,000 satellites each.
How many more until collisions become an issue? (Score:2)
What kind of density is required for collisions to become a significant issue? Sure, we can divert to some extent, but without something like a traffic control system in place, how many constellations of thousands of satellites are required before there's regular near-misses (and collisions)?
bullshit puzzle (Score:2)
SpaceX are just the first. They have the approval for 12,000 satellites, but another 30,000 more are planned. This may seem like a lot, or maybe it doesn't. But then comes another company, and another, and the numbers of launches, satellites, space debris and burn-ups begin to multiply...
It's like watching someone piece together a puzzle, which depicts a giant turd and they refuse to realise it even at the very end, because they are hoping for the last piece to reveal something completely different and magn
Get busy then (Score:2)
All the more reason to get an observatory on the moon.
Re: (Score:2)
You'd be in sunlight for 14 days in a row then in darkness for 14 days in a row. Better to chuck it out to the L2 point and use the Earth as a Sun block.
Money Talks (Score:3)
It's quite simple - commercial entities in one country seem to be quite free to launch and pollute the celestial view for every single other person on the planet.
The FCC should be taken out and shot for allowing this.
Ah well - target practice for the Russians and Chinese anti-satellite weapons I suppose.
FCC? (Score:2)