[mchusma]

There is a cohort of astronomers that don't want earths orbit filled with humans. It's sort of a naturalistic argument, effectively that they will lose their ability to take photos of what they want. On the margin, it's good for people like SpaceX to try and do what they can to minimize negative externalities.

But I think that we as a race should not cater to them for a few reasons:

1) there is no precident for "owning" the sky above you to infinity, it's an odd position legally

2) there is another cohort of people that want to expand consciousness who are impeded by this NIMOP (Not In My Orbital Plane) crowd. We can fit a quadrillion humans comfortably on rotating space habitats. This seems like a better goal under most moral systems than retaining the right to take pretty pictures.

3) any loss of "science" due to the loss of ground based sensors would be more than offset by having a robust space presence.