[TeMPOraL]

They will continue to whine until all observation is done from outer space.

On the one hand, it's good to have a reminder as it's important that interference with terrestrial astronomy is taken into account when designing new space missions. On the other hand, the degree to which the whining is being amplified by doing it in news articles gives it a bit of "shitting where you sleep" quality - my feeling is they're already quite successfully souring the nascent space industry to the general population, which is extremely counterproductive long-term, especially for people whose fields' existence depends pretty much entirely on goodwill and surplus funding.

In other words: excessive whining about space utilization will not stop launches of telecom satellites and subsequent light and radio pollution, but it may very well make it so no one will have the will and the spare cash to fund the next space-based telescope.

[imiric]

That's such an unreasonable and hostile take.

As a sibling comment pointed out, most people impacted by this will be amateur astronomers, and, you know, casual star gazers.

Secondly, this isn't "souring the space industry". LEO satellites mostly serve terrestrial companies and governments, where they're used for military, communication, and, increasingly, other commercial purposes. The complaints aren't about space tourism projects or launching a few space telescopes; they're about launching thousands of satellites, and fueling the commercialization of LEO, where the sky will eventually be littered by these things. We're at the very early stages of this, and individuals are already voicing concerns about it. I hope this "whining" continues, as I sure as hell don't want to also see ads when I look up into the sky.

[welterde]

Except most organizations can barely afford their ground-based observatories as it is, so to think you can chuck enough capacity into orbit to compensate even a fraction of it for anywhere close in budget is wishful thinking.

It will be a nuisance for amateur astronomers too (for astro-photography people anyway), since they are more likely to take wide-angle shots (increasing likelihood of bright transient in shot) and have less technical means to compensate for it. And they certainly don't have the budget to launch their own satellites..