[ISL]

Astronomers are way behind on this -- it has never been a problem before -- but launching a huge constellation of satellites before considering the potentially irreversible impact on a branch of science seems unwise to me.

Global internet sounds awesome, and has undeniable benefit to humankind. Uncoordinated launches of large constellations will have some detriment to humankind. The thing I'd like to see is a clear-eyed assessment of the impacts and mitigation strategies before there are billions more in sunk costs deployed in launching these constellations. Once they're up, they're up, and large companies will lose huge if the constellations have to come back down.

Motorola's bankruptcy came from insufficient monetization of Iridium. SpaceX will be in the same boat, if they aren't already.

I'm an experimental physicist, not an astronomer. Limiting systematic uncertainty is what I do all day. When I see these constellations, what I see is a zoo of uncontrolled systematics and a shrinking opportunity to address them before they become permanent.

As someone who looks at the stars, I want generations in the future to look at the stars and have their imaginations captured by distant pinpricks of burning hydrogen, not a visual screen of our own construction. Our children's understanding of our place in the universe may depend upon it.

[shadowgovt]

FWIW, nothing about the SpaceX constellation is going to make the visible pinpricks of burning hydrogen go away. They orbit too close to the Earth to be visible at night in most of the sky.

How much astronomy relies upon sunrise / sunset observation windows?