[echopom]

I'm really concerned about the alarms raised by Scientific in regards to "Space Pollution".[0]

Elon Musk has been dodging the question for the past years and never gave a clear answer about it aside of "Umbrella" joke...

Some astronomers are suggesting that with multiple space telecom companies ( US + EU + China ) it would potentially mean we would never be able to see space in plain sight ever. At least not without visual pollution.

[0]https://qz.com/1971751/a-flood-of-spacex-satellites-started-...

[rklaehn]

SpaceX has put in a lot of effort to reduce the visual pollution aspect of starlink.

See https://twitter.com/ralfvandebergh/status/136999054076322611... for how the visibility of Starlink sats has changed over time.

For professional earth based astronomy, it is possible to remove the streaks digitally. But of course there is a slight impact. But what is the alternative? Just stop development of low earth orbit forever?

The future of professional astronomy is space based. Imagine what a telescope you can launch with a single starship launch...

[toomuchtodo]

We could be constantly lifting new observatories to space, launch is no longer the constraint, but satellite manufacturing and cost.

NASA needs the SpaceX equivalent of an org that churns out satellites. The next bus to orbit leaves shortly.

[shantara]

I agree, and this applies to satellite manufacturing in general. Starlink has demonstrated that the new launch cadence requires a switch from single unit and small scale to serial production.

It's unbelievable that we don't currently have standard designs not just for observatories, but for communication, navigation, cartography and other satellite types. Cubesats took a step into the right direction, the same needs to happen for even larger payloads.

Another side of the problem is that NASA budget is heavily influenced by politics and PR. I'm sure there's plenty of smart people there who have realized that from purely scientific point of view, ten or twenty less capable and more disposable interplanetary probes or observatories could have advantage over unique absurdly expensive projects like JWT and Perseverance. But they are not as exciting and harder to sell to politicians and general public.

[TeMPOraL]

Launch is not a constraint for... about a year now. Satellites have a bit more lag time.

I don't think NASA needs the SpaceX equivalent for satellites - SpaceX itself is causing a boom in satellite manufacturing, so commercial market is accumulating expertise and lowering prices. NASA should find it easier and cheaper to buy or subcontract pieces of satellites too, and focus on bespoke mission-specific hardware.

[hwc]

Maybe SpaceX should make it up to the scientific community by promising to (at no charge) put 100T of satellite telescopes in a high orbit every year once Starship is functional.

[rklaehn]

That would be awesome PR, and not that expensive with starship.

But for low production rate things like telescopes, launch cost is almost negligible even at current launch prices.

A replacement for hubble could be launched with a single falcon 9. Building it would cost more than a billion.

The James Webb Telescope is at 10 billion USD and counting. Launch with very expensive Ariane 5 will cost maybe 200 million USD, so ~2%.

[cbozeman]

I don't know why you're being downvoted... maybe it's the "no charge" aspect of your post, but SpaceX offering to send up research telescopes for at-cost-of-launch, or maybe a little over, would be a great philanthropic endeavor.

[TeMPOraL]

It would be a great philanthropic endeavor indeed, but I personally have a problem with suggesting they have to do this to "pay back" to the community. They've already paid back to everyone who ever considers launching anything to space, by cutting off a zero out of launch costs - and they're about to cut off another zero.

Launch costs tend to be a small part of mission costs for bespoke scientific hardware - but what makes those missions expensive is a feedback loop: rare and expensive launches -> need to make best use of the mass budget -> increased complexity -> need to make more robust -> increased complexity -> more expensive -> rarer launches -> more expensive launches. SpaceX just kicked that loop into reverse. With that much cheaper launches, people can afford less robust and less complex missions, and do more of them, which lowers the costs as scale kicks in.

SpaceX is making space cheap. That's already a great gift to everyone.

[gbrown]

Mirror size is the issue - until we can easily manufacture huge, incredibly precise mirrors in-situ, space based will never replace ground based astronomy.

[Robotbeat]

It’s not manufacture. It’s assembly. And I think astronauts are faster and cheaper than robots for in space assembly. Or they will be once Starship is operational. NASA did a ton of work in EVA orbital assembly with Shuttle (and still chooses to do exterior work on ISS via EVA and not purely robotically) but it was always like 10 or 100 times too expensive. Starship ought to change that. In addition to its 8m diameter payload bay.

[iso1210]

There aren't many telescopes with a >8m diameter mirror, and it looks like the largest single mirror is 8.2m

Starship's payload is 8m.

[Robotbeat]

I don’t see how anyone who has read broadly on this topic could say with a straight face that SpaceX has been just dodging this.

SpaceX has done more to mitigate visibility of their satellites than any satellite maker/operator in history, with the possible exception of classified payloads. They installed sunshades that reduce the visibility of the satellites when fully deployed (in operational orbit) to below the visibility limit in almost all conditions. You have to have exceptionally good timing, eyesight, and dark skies to catch recent Starlink satellites once operational now. But a satellite like ISS is so bright and obvious, you can even sometimes see it in the daytime. (ISS is as bright as all new operational Starlink satellites combined.)

Read this article to see the significant changes they’ve made: https://www.spacex.com/updates/starlink-update-04-28-2020/in...

[caconym_]

SpaceX is taking concrete steps to make their satellites as unobtrusive as possible without significantly compromising their design. Beyond that, this is really a choice between developing space and not. Quit with the FUD about Musk “dodging” questions, etc.—say what you mean, which is that you think pristine night skies should forever take precedence over the economic development of space. Or, if it doesn’t sound good stated so straightforwardly, don’t.

[vasco]

I can't wake up and see the world without loads of buildings and roads and cars in sight either.

[robocat]

No different from city light pollution preventing optical telescopes being near cities.

Or radio pollution causing constraints for radio-astronomy.

My guess is that cheap reliable worldwide internet connectivity will help science overall by far more than the costs of modifying terrestrial optical observations to mitigate the extra satellites.

[jiofih]

There are already 1200 of them in orbit, can you go outside and point at a single one?

When this controversy was started they addressed concerns by reducing the satellites reflectance and it seems to have worked.

[tidepod12]

A couple points:

1) 1200 is a small percentage of the tens of thousands of satellites that the full system, plus the other similar systems will eventually consist of.

2) Being able to go outside and point out a satellite has absolutely no relevance on the satellite's impact on professional astronomy.

3) It did not "seem to have worked". SpaceX experimented with reducing the reflectivity of their satellites, but only some satellites have that reduced reflectivity, and astronomers found them to be only marginally better.

[cbozeman]

Yeah, and what's going to advance humanity as a whole more significantly, I wonder... high-speed Internet access for the entire planet... or professional astronomers not being able to see into space as easily as they did 20 years ago?

or... Or... OR... Launching massive powerful telescopes into space using SpaceX rockets for professional astronomers to use?

[genericone]

Their livelihoods are under attack, they're going to fight it regardless of the upside of starlink.

[tidepod12]

I have no idea who you're addressing. If it's me, that's quite a nice strawman you've built. Next time perhaps try to actually address the words written in my comment rather than inventing some boogeyman that nobody brought up except you.

Here, I'll demonstrate:

>high-speed Internet access for the entire planet

Musk himself has said that only a tiny, tiny fraction of the world will ever be able to use Starlink. It is not anywhere close to "internet access for the entire planet", and certainly isn't providing any more internet access than is already provided by existing satellite internet providers.

>or professional astronomers not being able to see into space as easily as they did 20 years ago?

In case you weren't aware, astronomy is responsible for some of the most significant scientific advancements since for literally millennia. If you really want an answer to your questions, it's this: professional astronomers being prevented from doing research is significantly more of a negative impact to humanity's advancement than the positive impact from 0.001% of the world having access to lower ping internet. It's not even close.

>or... Or... OR... Launching massive powerful telescopes into space using SpaceX rockets for professional astronomers to use?

Even with something the size of Starship, it's physically impossible to launch anything even remotely close to the size of telescopes needed by professional astronomers.

[Jabbles]

Surely they will only be visible a short time before sunrise or after sunset, when the satellite can see both you and the sun?

[TeeMassive]

If you know the position of the satellites it's very easy to mitigate their effect.

[findthewords]

Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite orbits decay rapidly thanks to atmospheric drag.