[sneak]

There is also the (no help at the moment) fact that the more money that Starlink's parent company makes, the more likely we are to get the world's cheapest heavy lift orbital booster soon, and the more likely we are to soon have multiple large orbital telescopes that far exceed ground-based capabilities.

Basically, if SpaceX makes it, we'll probably have a Starship-launched lunar observatory quite soon, in the grand scheme of things.

This doesn't help the situation now, although there is so much screaming from the anti-Musk people as well as the pro-Musk people that it's hard to tell what the actual impact of the now-somewhat-albedo-mitigated starlink v.whatever satellites are. All of the coverage is breathless sky-is-falling stuff.

In any case, the situation is temporary. Either SpaceX makes it and we get a far side of Luna observatory and LEO/MEO telescopes besides, or they don't and in a few years Starlink all falls down and burns.

[bruckie]

Would cheaper/larger launch vehicles significantly change the economics of deploying space based observatories? The James Webb space telescope has cost about $10 billion, and you can afford even today's largest/most expensive launch vehicle (Delta Heavy) for a relatively small fraction of that ($350M).

[coryrc]

It'd be a lot cheaper if they iterated and could service the machine if needed. Waterfall is the most expensive way of doing something.