They are actively working on reducing reflectivity but there will always be an impact and honestly any effort to improve it will be well appreciated by me. However, even though I love the work astronomers do and the view of a clear sky into the stars, I must say I prefer global Internet availability over making astronomers clean their data from satelite datapoints.
Most discussions about this leave the goal of Starlink out of the picture. If this can bring Internet access to every spot on Earth, the immediate benefit for humanity is clear.
On the other hand, Starlink is going to make use of their next-gen Starship, and with a viable amount of business space launches will become cheap enough for launching lots of cheap specialized space telescopes.
> However, even though I love the work astronomers do and the view of a clear sky into the stars, I must say I prefer global Internet availability over making astronomers clean their data from satelite datapoints.
That’s great because apparently nobody but SpaceX has any say in what happens.
Are you unaware of the federal licenses required for these satellites to be deployed, or do you just mean they were granted without taking astronomers' wishes into account?
Edit: This is a sincere question. Several comments on this story indicate people don't believe there's any regulation as to what happens in space.
Edit 2: While I'm editing things, here's the FCC Record for the original Starlink proposal in case you're curious what some of the objections brought up during the original comment period were. https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-18-38A1.pdf Mostly it looks like other satellite operators worried about interference, orbital debris concerns, and there was a note about potential impacts on radio astronomy.
To be clear, I'm not actually saying this is all the fine. I think there are discussions to be had about the obviously worldwide impact. However, the point that I'm making was that "nobody but SpaceX has any say in what happens" is not true.
Certainly people can complain that current international treaties, federal regulations and so on aren't sufficient, that the decisions reached by regulatory bodies were incorrect, or ill informed, etc. But first they should be aware those decisions existed and did take into account input from a variety of sources, and it's not just 'if you can get it to space, do whatever you want'.
Not sure if you're aware, but it's widely publicized that SpaceX was granted licenses, waivers, and extensions that other companies were not, nor have been in the past. So yes, they have licenses, but it seems lobbying and Elon's fame has far more to do with this than anything.
Radio astronomers were all over it well before the first Tintin test satellites launched.
The optical astronomers weren’t in the habit of commenting on satellite launch licensing and got caught on the back foot. Now the media campaign is basically optical astronomers complaining that “there is no process” because they didn’t get involved in the process in time.
The same process the other people use: respond to the applications while they are open for comment. Just write a letter with pen on paper if that’s the level of funding you have.
30 minutes away from Microsoft main campus in Redmond WA, (and just a bit further away from Google/Amazon campus' in the area)
Best available internet is a 3mbit down, 1-if-you're-lucky-mbit up DSL connection from CenturyLink with latency that jumps into the 2.5+ second range when it rains hard. Which, fortunately it never does in the pacific northwest. :-D
And no, traditional satellite is a no-go, even if it was an affordable option. We have these things called "mountains" you see, and the satellites are only at certain spots in the sky, sadly occluded by a couple billion tons of rock and tree.
To reiterate, this is within commuting distance of "big tech" HQs.
Starlink can't come fast enough. Existing ISPs need to feel the pain of screwing their customers so bad for so long.
I'm within line-of-sight of Google HQ (I can literally see their campus from my porch, less than six miles away) yet my only wired internet option is AT&T DSL. Comcast offered to add my home to their network for a paltry $22,000. I look forward to Starlink creating a universal competitor even if I'm not a customer. It'd be even better if rockets needn't be involved in creating a competitive marketplace, but that doesn't seem likely.
I don’t understand, why is it not feasible to bring faster internet connectivity to suburban America with traditional infrastructure? Why do we need an entrepreneur to launch a constellation of satellites into low earth orbit—ruining the night sky for astronomers globally?
Countries like Finland and Iceland can bring decent speed internet to rural populations where it rains as much (or even more) then in the pacific north west. So I don’t know what makes America so exceptional that they can’t bring good internet to their population.
This system is not primary for suburban America, but for places that are further out. But if suburban America is so shit, then why not solve this problem as well.
It is absolutely not a "mostly-US problem". We have the same problem in Australia. A lot of places only option was crappy ADSL. Then new (centre-left) government announced a project (NBN) to install fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) to the majority of the population. Massive, very expensive project, that was going to take a long time. Quite predictably, the centre-right party attacked it as costing too much money. Six years later, the centre-right win election, and thus far only a small number of lucky people had got their FTTP installed. New government decides FTTP was too expensive, replaces it with crappy fibre-to-the-node (FTTN) instead, which slows to a crawl whenever the node is oversubscribed (happens a lot due to the growing popularity of video streaming). And it tells other people that any fixed line solution was too expensive for them, and forces them on to wireless or satellite. Some people even got told they were losing their ADSL and having it replaced with a less reliable wireless or satellite connection.
... poor internet bandwidth or accessibility in remote region... is a "US only problem"??
I make it a point to not sound snarky or sarcastic on HN, we have a pretty good standard of discourse here - but that just seems a ludicrous statement to make, and I'm frankly curious what consideration went into it, as opposed to a knee-jerk reaction?
I don't think technology will solve all the world's ills; I agree that regulation of markets is a useful measure to undertake in certain situations; I don't find "Socialist" a swear word; but if ever there was a problem with a technical solution, then accessibility of internet in remote solution is almost the canonical use-case. Regulation of markets will not bring the Interwebs to remote or underdeveloped parts of the world.
Now... if we want to discuss whether bringing the Intertubes to all the world is a worthy goal or not; whether it is worth the compromises and risks a massive constellation of satellites will impose; sure, that's a productive tops to examine. But if we accept for sake of argument that internet in remote or underdeveloped parts of the world is a goal, I'm curious to see how market regulation will make that happen better and faster than a giant freakin' laser... I mean, giant freakin' constellation of satellites :).
Local market regulation is what is blocking any competition. The absurd believe people have that whenever something isn't working, markets will need more regulation is so absurd.
There are literally regulation that are preventing markets from even existing. But your solution is more regulation?
The quality of internet service falls off precipitously as you leave urban city limits.
It's better than it could be - when we decided to move "to the country", we almost bought a property where the only internet option was HughesNet. From all reports, HughesNet is incredibly expensive and barely usable. A big plus for the place we landed is that we can get "rural wireless broadband" - basically a point-to-point wifi signal bounced off of a solar-powered relay on a hill, to a set of towers on a faraway ridge, run by a folksy two-man ISP. It's expensive, unreliable, and slow compared to what I left in SF. But it's better than HughesNet and there's no data cap.
I don't know what to expect from Starlink, but I'm hopeful. Even if it's just a reliable 10Mbit connection I'll be ecstatic.
I feel for you. Our holiday house is about 30km beyond the middle of nowhere, but the 4g uplink is reliable. Plus we have to share it with very very few others...
If we ever need more, I'll probaby do just like the folksy two-man ISP you describe...
More supply drives down prices. Don't even mention current satelite Internet. Those operate via GSO satelites with seconds of ping and a way higher pricing considering SpaceX wants to be competitive with broadband pricing.
My mom's house in rural Arkansas. I mean basically if you live outside of a large city you have 1 choice of internet access and it's usually hot garbage and over priced.
Usually you are able to save the tasks that require fast internet connection for later. If you find your self on a slow internet connection while uploading a large video file, you can hold that up until you find somewhere that has a fast connection.
You also often have the option of lowering the bandwidth requirements (e.g. switch of the video call for a voice call at a lower quality). I find fast internet a luxury rather then anything while traveling.
And you can also not use wireless ever until you can connect to a cable.
What kind of logic is that? Sure, humanity has existed before global internet. But now that we can have it, there are 100s of reason to do so.
You see it as a luxury, but so is the ability to buy clean water or even get it of the tab. Things that are luxury in the beginning get cheap enough so many can use it and that whats called progresses.
Is there a reason you need fast internet connection in forrests/on the Arctic/while sailing in the middle of the ocean?[1] Is there a reason why much of Africa or Asia can’t invest in similar infrastructure as Europe has done to provide internet to where people live?
1: Maybe it could be handy to transmit large amount of science data I suppose, but they seemed to be able to cope with this limitation while photographing the black holes
> is there a reason you need fast internet at home? now imagine being some place that isn't home.
My internet needs away from home are vastly different then at home, so I don’t understand how this is an answer.
> crushing poverty?
It is highly likely that the same poverty is going to prevent locals from using Starlink. Besides lacking infrastructure in large parts of Africa and Asia has often been the result of bad policy, or wars, not poverty (or poverty as a result of war). A lot of African nations are catching up on their infrastructure projects, and I see no reason why they will skip internet connectivity as they build up their infrastructure (given that most African nations have infinitely better policy—and a lot fewer wars—now then say 30 years ago).
I used to live on a boat. It'd be nice to have access to the internet when I do so again even coastally. I can't even imagine how much of a boon getting internet access across an ocean would be. Not only to help with boredom, but also to get heaps of up to date weather observation and prediction data to do routing.
I’ve never navigated across oceans so I don’t know this, but can’t you already get (albeit slow) internet connection at sea via satellite? Or at least sufficient connection for accessing weather data?
Regarding boredom, I know a lot of sailors bring with them physical media, i.e. books, DVDs, video games, etc. knowing the internet connection will be slow.
I know getting fast internet at sea would certainly make life better for people traveling across oceans a lot, but the question is: Is is worth sacrificing the night sky for astronomers over?
This is crazy. Why do you need fast internet away from ground based infrastructure?
Are you just acting dumb or trolling? Because its easy to come up with 100s of reasons why you would want internet in those places. You can't seriously claim you don't see the need for that.
What you need and what you want are vastly different. Off course I want fast internet wherever I am, but I don’t need it. And I’m certainly not willing to sacrifice the night sky for astronomers for it.
Most airlines will end up using it to stream telemetry as a backup and for areas where primary telemetry communication channels aren't viable. IIRC, it doesn't work near the poles but for everywhere else it would be good for knowing the last position when a flight vanishes.
"Albedo" sounds like visible light. That's fine for those guys. Then there's x-ray and above, and infrared- and radio- below. Doubt they'll be able to make those sats soak up all EM radiation. And a few thousand of them will also be bouncing ground-based signals back down in all directions ... forget about isolation from earth-based sigs in basins.
I don't recall any beforehand news of this being publicly discussed.
There are currently roughly 5000 satellites in orbit (per wikipedia). I don't have good stats on those 5000 satellites but I believe they are on average substantially bigger than the starlink satellites.
Either way, a few thousand things spread out over the surface area of the earth is practically nothing.
> Either way, a few thousand things spread out over the surface area of the earth is practically nothing.
and the surface of a sphere at the altitude they're orbiting at is even larger. and the satellites are all spread across a variety of altitudes, relative to their size.
Satellites already have a nontrivial effort put into keeping their orbits from colliding with each other. Increasing that number by 50% is not going to be easy.
First, I don't think space is either American or Non-American land :)
Second, I imagine outer space treaty covers this in much similar way that treaties governing international waters do.
Third, to a certain degree "satellite trash" is in the eye of beholder - I don't think there's any more or less legality in this, than in ISS, TV and comms satellites, GPS, etc all flying all around the world.
No one wants to get into a real estate battle in space. At least not yet. Maybe some day it will make sense to some nation but right now fighting that battle is a negative sum game.
I know people living in remote and even not so remote areas for whom cheap and easy internet access would literally be a live changer, and who wouldn't care less about astronomers having their work more difficult as a consequence, because, again, it would be a literal life-changing event for them in terms of personal safety, agriculture, income or education.
There's a lot of misinformation about how visible Starlink is. The satellites are barely visible (and only in dark skies) in their operational orbits. Next-gen versions (with albedo reductions, which they've started experimenting with) will likely be operationally invisible entirely. This doesn't mean it won't be an issue for astronomy with incredibly sensitive instruments from which almost nothing can hide. SpaceX is working with the astronomy community to try to improve the situation for (especially) ground survey campaigns.
As far as who will pay for it... SpaceX has lower launch costs than anyone else by a significant fraction as well as lower satellite costs (likely by a similar fraction). There are tens or perhaps (globally) hundreds of millions of rural users who these constellations would help, as well as some fraction of more urban users.
Satellite internet already several billion in annual revenues from rural areas, in spite of the terrible service and high (expendable) launch costs. It doesn't take much for SpaceX to be profitable here; being a satellite service provider historically is much more lucrative than being a launch provider. The main unproven hurdle I see is user terminals, not the constellation itself.
The launch costs are nowhere near the most expensive part. By using leo they have cornered themselves into using technology that won't be available to consumers.
> There are tens or perhaps (globally) hundreds of millions of rural users who these constellations would help, as well as some fraction of more urban users.
indeed, even if you have a ground link, something radio based makes a spectacular backup. even if you've got one good high speed link available, it's unlikely you've got two whose failures are even slightly decorrlated.
Based on the prices I've been hearing, yes. $100/month or less for a GB/s connection shared between dozens of houses or more. Or an astute entrepreneur will create a cybercafe or resell it. The small businessmen can also afford it (since they already have satellite TVs), and they stand to make the most from it financially. The possibilities are many.
And it's not a problem of profitability for some, it's a problem of availability. Some could afford what their urban compatriots pay for internet, but that's simply not possible.
Yes! I live 90 minutes from Washington DC and have no land-based Internet access. Our community of 59,000 has probably just 65% true broadband coverage, from one cable provider. The FCC maps are a lie, they show my home and my neighbors as having access.
They've done a bit, enough that the public won't be severely affected. But as it stands: no, the techbros will simply kill large parts of ground based astronomy to stream gifs to rural California.
I think everyone making these comments is going to be eating their words in about 10 years when orbital telescopes are so cheap and plentiful that even third grade classrooms will be booking time for observations.
A comment below explained that we don’t have the technical capabilities to launch a 30 meters diameter telescope in orbit. And we’ll probably not have that capability in 10 years either. The extremely large telescope being build in the Atacama desert is almost 40 meters in diameter.
Sure maybe it can be fun for a third grader to look into images made for them by a cheep satellite telescope, but professional astronomers will continue to need the larger telescopes that remain technologically impossible to lunch into space for the next decade, or few.
Without wanting to get involved in the purpose of your rhetorical question (the purpose being some kind of analogy to the StarLink situation)...
How many compilers were there back in the 60s? By codebase or by install count, your choice. Hundreds of codebases and tens of thousands of installs?
How about now? Tens of thousands of codebases and billions of installs?
Do you think this could have happened without lowering the cost of transistors pretty hugely? (circa 3e7-fold price decrease in 50 years)
Seems to me that lowering the cost of transistors DOES increase the number of compilers, whether by counting the number of distinct codebases, or by counting number of users, or counting number of installed copies, or number of times executed, or whatever.
Here's the logic: If space launches are expensive, you spend more on your satellite to make it worthwhile. Give it more features, etc. Then spend even more to make it extremely reliable, because replacing it would also be expensive (both the launch and the hardware itself). If launches are cheap and routine, you can just launch a cheap simple satellite for each type of sensor you want, and even if it fails you can launch backups (or just activate stand-bys already in orbit). You can even aggregate the sensor data from a swarm of smaller satellites to generate the view of a single large virtual telescope, potentially bigger than anything you could construct on the ground.
I'm sure you know rural California is not the only place without stable and fast internet access. And while that is one usage that will probably dominate in the developed world, have you considered the possibilities in Africa, Asia and the oceans?
