I know most of followers of this channel are fervently FOR tech, and even more FOR SpaceX, it is nevertheless hard to dismiss those criticisms as irrelevant, especially the one on proliferation & light pollution. I have not seen people talk about this point yet, but the more ties SpaceX has with US military, the less the possibility for Starlink to be operated in other parts of the world (EU & China, India). The Chinese have also practiced shooting down its own satellite with missle. So what do you think of these issues? Let me know in the comments!
Curious Elephant with starships capabilities they could send up a new space telescope similar to james webb everyday, quickly replacing and outdating ground based systems or at the very least working in conjunction with ground based telescopes to get clearer images, they already use this technique to get over distortion in the atmosphere
when james webb is launched it will change science and space forever, and space x will have the capability to launch a james webb without the added complexity, imagine having 10 james webb telescopes in the sky🤯
How could Starlink be a threat to astronomy? They would only be reflecting light during a brief period of dawn or dusk; they are so low orbiting they would quickly enter the Earths shadow. I don’t believe many major observatories do observation during this time anyway since they need dark skies.
To me Starlink is not an issue other, than there is a new technology coming making space travel 1% cost of what was 5 years ago. All should adapt. Also astronomers with their ideas to build billion dollar telescopes on Earth. Maybe that is a dumb idea to pursue. Also laws regarding satellite traffic have to be updated.
I'm an astrophotographer, and Starlink satellites are really not an issue. Their tracers on long exposure frames are easily erased with sigma-clipping stacking algorithm. I think also the professional observatories shouldn't have much problems with increasing satellites quantities. And they use same algorithms to clean data. For instance, the field of view of upcoming LSST telescope is so large that it's guaranteed that every frame would have a satellite on it. So it doesn't matter for them if the number of satellite would increase even several folds. What must to be taken into consideration is an issue of space debris. All satellites and boosters (especially those on LEO) must include an deorbiting device. Otherwise things will be pretty messed up, if we would pollute our own nearby space to the point that it would become dangerous to go pass our planet's own space debris cloud.
Most of these "issues" are actually no issues at all. There are currently ~28k airplanes in the skies. Everyone sees them every once in awhile - heck, they even make a sound you can hear. Do we care? No. The argument of space junk is not a big deal especially because they are at LEO, so any malfunctioning satellites will deorbit in a very short timeframe. (Worst case is about 2 years afaik). Same goes obviously for any fragments IF any of these satellites do crash. The incident with ESA was a great over-exaggeration of events since the probability of crashing was 1 in 10000. SpaceX is working on an AI System to autonomously maneuvering & dodging debris/satellites and ESA has a similar project - and used this PR to maybe get more funding.
@@iTuber012 Definitely not an expert but I did read up quite a bit about this topic. People just cannot get their head around the amount of space that is up there.
Light pollution due to increasing number of Earth orbiting satellites will eventually become an issue, and it's unavoidable. What people should really try to do is to drive innovation so more observatories could be set up in space, outside of the shell of satellites servicing Earth.
It is NOT about "Telescopes on Earth", but rather MASSIVE, already HUGELY INVESTED "Projects" all around the world that EXPECTED little to no growth on satelite numbers in the next decades [based solely on the "cost per kilogram" for LEO launches]. -> The DISRUPTION that reusable rockets (Falcon Series & Starship) is making waves.
Basically, everyone agrees that "Telescopes should be in SPACE anyways"; but the "gargantuan" efforts to overcome basic atmosphere attenuation [by pentuple-sizing stuff "on the ground"], created tons of jobs & political promises that now will have their "max scientific potential" reduced on the long term. SPACEX is basically creating a problem (tons of tiny satelites they launch), to then provide "a tailored solution" ( Starship as the only thing in the world big enough to place huge & "heavy" optical telescopes in space ). It is as amoral as a Mafia setting up an exclusive "bussiness". -> It is also for "The Greater Good" of humanity in the long run (not for the individual countries/universities that gave the "Patronage" to astronomers).
SpaceX can launch massive telescopes to space with Falcon heavy already. And their ability to launch will only grow exponentially larger with Starship. The era of ground-based telescopy is over. We are just in the transition phase to cheap access to orbit. Telescope-users cannot demand that we remain on earth so their view is unobstructed. They must come up to space themselves.
Absolutely agreed. We'll have satellite project pile up more and more due to advancement in rocket technology. They can protest now because SpaceX is US company... wait until China decides to compete and launch 40k sats of their own. Do you think they'll listen to any of these complaints? Instead of complaining, Astronomer should plan to build more space telescope because in the next 10 years launch cost will be really cheap (compare to today).
Maybe there should be a joint effort by countries to develop a system to remove dead satellites and space junk. Also, there should be some sort of international space traffic control organization. We have international air traffic control, why not have one for space?
The concern with a country deploying the technology to remove dead satellites and space junk from orbit is that this very technology is essentially a weapon as it can also be used to remove operational satellites from orbit too. If for example the US were to develop such a system then others would quickly follow with their own systems, creating an anti-satellite arms-race in space. I think this is largely why countries such as the US have been reluctant to do so as it would then open the door and provide justification for countries such as China and Russia to develop their own systems with the US having more to lose than anyone else given how reliant the US military and US economy are on space-based communications and systems. An international system sounds good in theory but would be difficult to implement in practise. You could easily envisage NATO countries working on such a system together (which would then obviously be seen as a military threat given its dual-use potential as a weapon) but to also work with China on a joint system seems unlikely given that NASA and China don't even cooperate on the ISS and there are actually Bills that have been passed in the US I believe that explicitly prohibit any such cooperation in space between the US and China, and given the ongoing trade war this seems even more unlikely than ever in the current climate. The 'one up/one down' approach might help to address the space junk problem somewhat and could certainly help prevent things spiralling out of control anytime soon, and with the large number of constellations planned in the near future then such an approach could actually have a huge impact on reducing the number of dormant satellites over the coming decades, greatly reducing the risks of a runaway Kessler syndrome. Leaving things to private industry might very well be the best approach in the short-to-medium term.
I know 40.000 sounds like a lot, but imagine how large the space is around earth and how small these satellites are. One of the problems is that in animations, satellites are rendered as 'points' which make them seem much much bigger than they are in reality, and therefore it seems crowded. In reality, 40.000 sattelies roaming a space that is much bigger than whole the earths surface (including seas) is not as crowded as it seems.
@@KaiHenningsen not sure how you got 4000? 510.100.000 / 40.000 = 12752 Km2 per sattelite (or 4,923 square miles). So that gives about an area of 113 by 113 Km for one satellite (or 70 by 70 mile). Satellites are the size of maybe... 4 by 10 meters? (32 by 13 feet). In their orbits, there is even 10% to 40% more space.
Leo’s whole argument in this is “it isn’t just 40,000 satellites”, if spacex does it , everyone will. China and Russia won’t like having an American company controlling their WiFi so they’ll deploy their own. Europe will follow suit to not seem technologically inferior to the US and then follow every developing space countries
Not to mention competing private companies , this number can get to 500,000 or above. The ideal thing would be just one for all of earth but politics won’t allow for that
For real right? Like... Yes we can all see our little galaxy with our little telescopes and yeah there's man-made satellites... But we're not just looking anymore. Like soon we'll literally be on the planets they're looking at.. so like... Non-issue.
For sake of credibility, I’d like to see some ground observatory photographs that have unquestionably been affected by Starlink satellites. Until then. . . it’s just noise from vested interests.
@@alessandrosavino1431 This is what you get with a long exposure instead of burstshoots and no computing to remove the satellites. That's not an issue.
@@johntheux9238 That is a relatively short exposure, a few minutes. 7-8 mags objects become visible with a 4-meter telescope in a matter of seconds. Trails can be safely removed only when they are strong, so that sigma-clipping algorithms are efficient. If they are too strong, though, they can saturate the ccd and leave artefacts even after removal. Lower intensity trails become increasingly more difficult to clip and they can be mistaken for low surface brightness astrophysical sources. Even after successfully removing the satellites, they don't just disappear. Those pixels are lost. This creates problems when modelling the selection effects of the observations. Source: I process astronomical images for a living.
It would be nice to put some mathematical context on what those number mean. Space is really big, the surface of the globe where startlink will put the satellites is 437600000 Square Km( assuming about 80% coverage of the sphere). If you decide by 40000 satellites that one for about 11000 Square Km, that very parsed.
For those that resolutely oppose Starlink . . . ironic to be doing so on the internet while preventing same access to half the world's population that is currently offline. If the goal is to have global conversation about these things going forward, surely we need Starlink and, by extension, the other 4 billion offline people to be part of such conversations.
one satellite in a higher orbit could help those people. the 40k is overkill, only to increase speed for stock investors. don't be fooled by the charitable rhetoric.
@@phoule76 That's not true. If it was that easy, it would already have happened. Also, it is extremely rare for socially responsible companies like SpaceX and Tesla to exist in the first place. Rather than pure profit, they are motivated by a mission for a sustainable, exciting, and positive future for humanity and should be supported. Starlink revenues are necessary for a self-sustaining colony on Mars and for the future of space travel. I get the cynicism but not every company or billionaire is a bad actor (though I agree that a huge number of them are) and in ignoring this, we're only shooting ourselves in the foot while the real bad actors continue to profit from local or global monopolies.
No it is not time. Ground telescopes offer numerous advantages over space facilities. Larger sizes, lower cost and rapid upgradability and serviceability, to cite a few. Before you argue that these characteristics can apply also to a network of space telescopes, that is still several decades along the way (even given starship and the new space revolution). This is also due to the typical approval/design/construction cycle timescale of large observatories. We cannot afford to abandon astronomy for 30+ years. Source: I am an astronomer. And I love SpaceX. And I want them to succeed with Starlink, as long as the issues are addressed.
Alessandro Savino all that will be possible for space telescopes with star ship, low cost/rapid repair; my advice stick to astronomy mr astronomer and leave the engineering to the engineers
@@nikkokp That, sir, is a rude answer. I approached with a valid argumentation, touching already the point you raise. I don't see why I shouldn't discuss of a topic I am passionate about and of which I have respectable technical competence. Shifting an entire scientific infrastructure to space is a long and painful process of logistic and bureaucratic reorganisation, that goes beyond the "now we can launch stuff into space cheaply". Not to mention all the technologies that we still need to develop to achieve that scenario. These sorts of facilities take decades to be put into place (plan a telescope to finally use it 20 years later). As the space enthusiast I assume you are, don't you agree that our ability to study the Universe deserves to be preserved?
Alessandro Savino i don’t care, my parents taught me nobody has to be nice to you and when they choose to be nice they don’t have to choose you to be nice too🤷🏾♂️
In the end, the positives(broadband availability to nearly EVERYONE on earth) ultimately, in my opinion, outweigh the negatives. Internet availability is fast becoming a human necessity whether we like it or not.
We have a global body that regulates that staff. FCA (I think) has submitted a paper for 40 000 satelites to that body, no grey area. Problem with albedo seem silly to me, you'll be able to filter starlink just by their speed and long observations are done in orbit and will be done in orbit. The only left problem is the collision problem, so that's why the submission, the body should figure out better ways of traffic in space. Also don't overstress the problem with the debris, indians destroyed their own satellite recently. Overall, I'm so happy that crowd don't decide staff like that, even if they think they are "smart"
Ugh, no, there is no global body regulating space use. There are international treaties such as Outer Space Treaty saying you can't put weapons of mass destruction in space, you can't claim sovereignty of outer space or celestial bodies but that's about it for international regulation. You are talking about FCC - Federal Communications Commission, which regulates radio communications in US. If you want to operate any sort of radio service within US you need their permission. If on the other hand you are Chinese state building domestic positioning system like BeiDou which nevertheless works globally, you really couldn't care less what FCC thinks about anything, they have no power over you. And FCC does not do any sort of traffic management, they only care about radio communications. Closest to any sort of traffic management comes from NORAD, they try their best to track all satellites and are polite enough to make that data public and send a notification when they see a possible collision coming. That's it really, they can't force a foreign nation to do anything if there is a problem. As for filtering out satellite trails, it's not nearly as easy as you think.
@@aleksandersuur9475 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_law a little bit more complicated and less alarming than one might think. Thanks for FCC reference, that's probably them
Astronomy is a lot more than taking pretty pictures the data we have about the universe, taking a picture of a black hole, measuring the the age of the universe. Finding asteroids near us. Collecting data for physicists. Astronomy is so much more than fancy pictures
Which is exactly why we need more orbital telescopes to get even better data going forward like Elon mentioned. We can look at the stars all we want but if we want to reach them and truly expand our understanding, we need launch and operational capabilities like the ones being developed by SpaceX.
How about a requirement that for every 50-100 satellite placed in low earth orbit, a university/government designed and built telescope would be placed in a higher orbit (say at a lagrange point) by the launch provider at no cost. A whole new era of astrometry could be opened.
It would mean no more good data can be gathered from the already heavily invested earthbound telescopes. The Black Hole photograph? Such images will not be possible anymore. It kills an entire field of science.
If there would be just 40.000 cars on Earth, all of them equally distributed, what are the chances of them hitting each other? Now imagine a space bigger than earth
This video presented a lot of very thin arguments like they were important ones. A) Albedo: The only time of day when they will be visible are when they reflect sunlight. This is a brief window just before sun down and just before sunrise. This is a window no serious astronomer uses for photography anyway. B) Collisions: The close call collision was hardly the grave situation media has tried to make it. I guess they love big headlines. The actual issue was a non-functioning pager. This has since been fixed. Since it is ... very easy to fix. C) Collisions: While 40000 satellites sounds like really much, they are actually (in terms of distance) quite far apart. There would be maybe 800 of them over US at the same time. If only 800 people existed in the US, would they even meet anyone else in a lifetime? D) Competition: SpaceX broke the previous record for satellites clearly with 60 in one go. However: This was with the current state of the art rocket. Launching 40000 would require 665 more launches to complete. With Falcon9. The only way for anyone, including SpaceX, to launch 40000 is with Starship. While the Chinese certainly has some fine rockets, they are not up to par compared to Falcon9, because of the latters resuability. And absolutely noboy is close to Starship. There is only a single runner-up worth considering her, and that is Blue Origin. And they are many years behind.
What stops other launching so many is their launch costs. Nobody else is within an order of magnitude of SpaceX launch cost currently, let alone when starship comes online.
Again, I am hearing this "space is already crowded"... Could you please specify what particular orbits that Starlink targets are crowded or will be crowded after full deployment?
I'm so confused about what's the big deal with that shinning effect. If an observer wants to observe something, if a satellite is so faint it will interfere no matter what, the difference is it's not bright, it's just dim, you can't still see behind that object. Right? Imagine you are looking something across the street and someone passed by, you can't still see it no matter what, if it's bright or not.
Imagine you are taking a long-exposure shot of something about as bright as a candle on the other side of the country, but shooting stars keep going through your viewfinder.
@@UnknownKnower2 The public are overreacting. When those satellites are in the right orbit. You can't barely see it. All these news and articles that show trails of the satellites are after the launch. It will takes days or weeks before they're in the proper orbit.
I think the value of having a world wide internet connection might be enough to outweigh the negative consequences of it being implemented. With a world wide internet system, just about everyone on earth could have access to the knowledge of the internet. The most impoverished and rural communities, that currently don't have access to the current internet infrastructure, would finally have access to almost unlimited knowledge, and they could use that knowledge to significantly improve their lives.
And they said that starlink satellites prevent people from watching the night sky but in reality it's the opposite. There is a lot more people interested in astronomy now, everyone is looking for the satellite train.
I think the biggest issue is the collision with other satellites. Our economy depends on this system, and if there is a massive collision, that would be fatal.
I think the problems are far overblown. The only legit one is the light pollution issue for astronomers. As a regular man I would love to see the StarLink constellation every time I look up to the sky. It would remind me that we are now truly in the space age. And with the insane low launch cost of the Starship, we could just launch a few dozen huge space telescopes, and never again worry about visibility. With modern tech these shouldn't be expensive to build either. We no longer have to make a single giant mirror, like for the Hubble. I think NASA should ask SpaceX to design a new space telescope too. We all know it would be done fast and cheap, and would be far better than anything exists now.
One solution to calm people down would be for SpaceX to announce that they'd launch the next major space observatory satellite for free. Like it or not, the night sky WILL get more crowded as our level of technology improve and large scale space observation was the next logical step anyway.
Considering, that Elon seems to get around very well with the Chinese government and culture, he might propose a solution that helps everyone. We might not need a billion satellites up there , but a system that can be used internationally and configured to comply with nations need/wants and oc security wants.
Regardless of Huawei, surely the Chinese would want they're own broadband constellation, just as they have their own GPS, rocket launch services, etc..
As far as i am aware the 40000 you mention will never be in orbit at the same time. They have launch permissions for 42000 but a large part will be as replacement for the part of the starlink constallation that will be at the end of their life ( 5 years ) so those need to be replaced by then.
As far as I know according to space law as it is now each launching country is responsible for the satellites it launches. So international regulation of a sovereign country launching constellations is a moot point. Unless such a treaty exists which it currently does not. Good luck getting the Chinese to agree to such a treaty or the USA.
At 2:17 I'm surprised that Lei didn't bring up the term of what could happen when a collision in space around our planet's orbit causes a domino effect of collisions. It's called the Kessler effect/syndrome.
Holy cow, Space X will just bring a few telescopes up into the orbit for free. Once the launching cost will be 1% of the cost 5 years ago, astronomers will be happy. About collisions; an automated system is the key. Tat seems easy. But off course, panic is always good to have, if one can not get it together.
@@thewestwinger3855 it is. Launch cost makes servicing expensive. Launch cost makes cost per unit expensive. If you could send 100 telescopes into orbit not caring, if half of them break down? If you could take them back and service on Earth. That would drive cost down significantly.
This is a great idea for a private company but not for the world. It wouldn't be wise to let a private company dominate low earth orbit this thoroughly or rely this heavily on a private company for internet access globally. It seems like this is a project that the international community should fund, create, and control like they're doing with ISS and nuclear fusion.
There are already 10,000 aircraft in the air at any given time, flying much lower and are much brighter. Satellites can be given a black mat finish and have no anti collision lights for a much smaller light signature. Probably the best way for SpaceX to shut astronomers up would be to add a small but high powered camera to all of their satellites and share the data. Imagine the take on thousands that would be available if they did that.
For now there is thousands (if not millions) of people around the world who are in awe each time they see the satellite train. So starlink has created more interest in astronomy than anything else, the betefits far outweight the downsides.
It's pretty obvious that barring aggressive action orbital congestion is gonna lead to a number of accidents that will semi permanently bar those orbits from any use at all.
Combining comments, I agree with all of you. There is a lot of space out there, and space telescopes offer huge benefits. People can still be skywatchers and use personal telescopes. Even games for locating them. Learn the basics of light and optics, then graduate to playing with the space telescopes!
I'd like to see SpaceX focus much less on satellites and much **more** on getting people to the MOON! Elon seems to be obsessed with getting people to **Mars** but it makes a lot more sense to get a **moon-base** up and running first.
Space based telescopes are SUPER expensive. The cost of launch IS NOT what makes them expensive. This is why starlink will likely never materialise AS big as he hopes as the world governments won't sit idly by and allow such
@Curious Elephant why can't we paint star link satellites body with something like vantablack or deep black which doesnt reflect any light? By that sky will be with less bright satellites and it wont interrupt star gazing experience.. What do you think?
You can only see the starlink constellation during dusk and dawn. Any other time the shadow of the earth blocks their light, so I really don't see what everyone is complaining about
Depends on your latitude and the season, during summer from London latitude for example the constellation will be visible the entire night right overhead. The satellites are high enough to be lit over the pole.
I would like to make a quick point here, which I feel your video overlooks to some extent: Nobody cares about astronomy. Okay, that is mild hyperbole, but the overwhelming majority of the people and media outlets now loudly complaining about Starlink's light pollution and its negative effects on astronomy would not have cared about the subject if asked prior to all this. There is good reason to follow the money though, as part of understanding why it is suddenly an issue. In the US we call them "cable companies," but they are large powerful internet and television service providers who have defacto regional monopolies. This means they can charge whatever they like for service, and do, because there is no alternative. They also are very rude and irritating to their consumer base, and in fact are some of the most hated companies in America. Were Starlink, or similar, to come online, they would suddenly face stiff competition on a pure price/performance basis, but they'd also face the reality that they've built up a lot of longstanding bad will which would likely cause many customers to change even if there were no significant price advantage. As a result, it is almost a certainty that at least some of this bad press about starlink is being pushed by these cable companies. Just my 2c. :)
Yeah, and I would add that starlink has created a lot of interest in astronomy by itself. There is thousands of people around the world trying to spot the satellite train at each launch.
Pretty soon I'll be able to buy a receiver and put it into my 4runner and drive right out to the middle of nowhere while enjoying High speed internet the whole time.
China's hasn't a snowballs chance in hell of building a network like Starlink the cost would kill them. Moreover Who the hell would want to use a censored Chinese internet service?
@@sausage4mash yeah. There's quite a few countries out there that don't appreciate what spacex is doing for the sake of controlling the flow of information, and I'm sure they'd all throw their support behind any legislation against space based wifi.
Nope, not to radical. It can be used to regulate sattilite paths, paths of planes, self driving cars, self flying cars, tracking space junk, rogue asteroids, GPS, telecommunications, world-wide internet, financial transactions, etc.
Because of light pollution, I can only see a few stars. Fix that then I'll care satellites. Also fix the failure of governments to offer or encourage good competing internet at an affordable price.
The newer version of Starlink are manouverable and i as i've read - astronomically - it will only really bother amateurs while bigger telescopes have no problem to compute out any sattelites. I don't see it as problematic and i see the bigger benefits.
The technology even for amateurs is changing rapidly, new cameras and software don't require one long exposure but are now moving toward taking many short exposures and adding them together, I get lots of images with satellites in them but "computing them out" as you say is almost trivial. If you have a hundred images of the same patch of sky and three have streaked satellites in them getting rid of the streaks is a matter of software. The single biggest challenge for amateurs is tracking the sky accurately for long exposures, moving to many shorter exposures helps reduce the need for ultra accurate tracking which requires very expensive precision mechanics to do.
don't worry about light pollution, just pay Elon to put 40000 more micro telescopes and crunch the data they spit out until you effectively have a terrascope. its not like anyone ever complained about shooting stars ruining astronomy and i fail to see the difference except that you know when these are comming.
Were it not SpaceX, it would be some other space company involved in launching satellites. Other companies will be launching their own satellites as well, so it just means that SpaceX is first on the list of grievances about their satellites.
I'm sorry but the era of ground-based telescopy is over. SpaceX can launch massive telescopes to space with Falcon heavy already. And their ability to launch will only grow exponentially larger with Starship. This problem is just a side-effect of SpaceX enabling cheap access to orbit. So we are in a transition-phase from the era where we were stuck on Earth to the era where we have serious exploration efforts on the moon, mars and elsewhere. Telescope-users cannot demand that we remain on earth so their view is unobstructed. They must come up to space themselves.
I mean, regarding Starlink possible collision; their sats have auto detect capabilities and designed to move out the way to prevent a collision and during cargo going into orbit, if anything, it’s other countries that should be developing better sense control - yet again Elon is bringing us innovative tech and he his the one who gets highlighted for all the wrong reasons, you mention China, they pose a bigger threat not only in space but down on earth too - developments due to be launched 2021 for the largest most advanced aircraft carrier yet, and you want their help??
I know most of followers of this channel are fervently FOR tech, and even more FOR SpaceX, it is nevertheless hard to dismiss those criticisms as irrelevant, especially the one on proliferation & light pollution. I have not seen people talk about this point yet, but the more ties SpaceX has with US military, the less the possibility for Starlink to be operated in other parts of the world (EU & China, India). The Chinese have also practiced shooting down its own satellite with missle. So what do you think of these issues? Let me know in the comments!
Starlink will likely not become a reality. Either due to direct cost failure and/or a treaty coming about due to EU etc suing them
Curious Elephant with starships capabilities they could send up a new space telescope similar to james webb everyday, quickly replacing and outdating ground based systems or at the very least working in conjunction with ground based telescopes to get clearer images, they already use this technique to get over distortion in the atmosphere
when james webb is launched it will change science and space forever, and space x will have the capability to launch a james webb without the added complexity, imagine having 10 james webb telescopes in the sky🤯
How could Starlink be a threat to astronomy? They would only be reflecting light during a brief period of dawn or dusk; they are so low orbiting they would quickly enter the Earths shadow. I don’t believe many major observatories do observation during this time anyway since they need dark skies.
To me Starlink is not an issue other, than there is a new technology coming making space travel 1% cost of what was 5 years ago. All should adapt. Also astronomers with their ideas to build billion dollar telescopes on Earth. Maybe that is a dumb idea to pursue.
Also laws regarding satellite traffic have to be updated.
I'm an astrophotographer, and Starlink satellites are really not an issue.
Their tracers on long exposure frames are easily erased with sigma-clipping stacking algorithm.
I think also the professional observatories shouldn't have much problems with increasing satellites quantities.
And they use same algorithms to clean data.
For instance, the field of view of upcoming LSST telescope is so large that it's guaranteed that every
frame would have a satellite on it.
So it doesn't matter for them if the number of satellite would increase even several folds.
What must to be taken into consideration is an issue of space debris.
All satellites and boosters (especially those on LEO) must include an deorbiting device.
Otherwise things will be pretty messed up, if we would pollute our own nearby space to the point that it would become dangerous to go pass our planet's own space debris cloud.
At least Starlink has a deorbit function. And plus, if that system fails, they'll deorbit without any help in 1-5 years
@@janpenner2002 Yup and the satellite fails and falls under earth they are made such a way that it will burn up under re-entry.
Astronomers say it's going to be a serious issue, so...
@@doodelay Hi, you right. I didn't think of time sensitive observations. When you can't collect sattellites-free sky data.
Most of these "issues" are actually no issues at all. There are currently ~28k airplanes in the skies. Everyone sees them every once in awhile - heck, they even make a sound you can hear. Do we care? No.
The argument of space junk is not a big deal especially because they are at LEO, so any malfunctioning satellites will deorbit in a very short timeframe. (Worst case is about 2 years afaik). Same goes obviously for any fragments IF any of these satellites do crash.
The incident with ESA was a great over-exaggeration of events since the probability of crashing was 1 in 10000. SpaceX is working on an AI System to autonomously maneuvering & dodging debris/satellites and ESA has a similar project - and used this PR to maybe get more funding.
it was clearily exagerated:
twitter.com/iridiumboss/status/1168582141128650753?lang=en
Another armchair expert
@@iTuber012 Definitely not an expert but I did read up quite a bit about this topic. People just cannot get their head around the amount of space that is up there.
Light pollution due to increasing number of Earth orbiting satellites will eventually become an issue, and it's unavoidable. What people should really try to do is to drive innovation so more observatories could be set up in space, outside of the shell of satellites servicing Earth.
It is NOT about "Telescopes on Earth", but rather MASSIVE, already HUGELY INVESTED "Projects" all around the world that EXPECTED little to no growth on satelite numbers in the next decades [based solely on the "cost per kilogram" for LEO launches].
-> The DISRUPTION that reusable rockets (Falcon Series & Starship) is making waves.
Basically, everyone agrees that "Telescopes should be in SPACE anyways"; but the "gargantuan" efforts to overcome basic atmosphere attenuation [by pentuple-sizing stuff "on the ground"], created tons of jobs & political promises that now will have their "max scientific potential" reduced on the long term.
SPACEX is basically creating a problem (tons of tiny satelites they launch), to then provide "a tailored solution" ( Starship as the only thing in the world big enough to place huge & "heavy" optical telescopes in space ). It is as amoral as a Mafia setting up an exclusive "bussiness".
-> It is also for "The Greater Good" of humanity in the long run (not for the individual countries/universities that gave the "Patronage" to astronomers).
Like on the dark side of the moon.😛 Wouldn't that be an awesome job to have?!
SpaceX can launch massive telescopes to space with Falcon heavy already. And their ability to launch will only grow exponentially larger with Starship.
The era of ground-based telescopy is over. We are just in the transition phase to cheap access to orbit. Telescope-users cannot demand that we remain on earth so their view is unobstructed. They must come up to space themselves.
Absolutely agreed. We'll have satellite project pile up more and more due to advancement in rocket technology. They can protest now because SpaceX is US company... wait until China decides to compete and launch 40k sats of their own. Do you think they'll listen to any of these complaints?
Instead of complaining, Astronomer should plan to build more space telescope because in the next 10 years launch cost will be really cheap (compare to today).
Maybe there should be a joint effort by countries to develop a system to remove dead satellites and space junk.
Also, there should be some sort of international space traffic control organization. We have international air traffic control, why not have one for space?
It's less and "international air traffic control" and more just local controllers abiding by similar standards.
Farragar we cant even clean up the garbage in the ocean... what makes you think we could work together in space
The concern with a country deploying the technology to remove dead satellites and space junk from orbit is that this very technology is essentially a weapon as it can also be used to remove operational satellites from orbit too. If for example the US were to develop such a system then others would quickly follow with their own systems, creating an anti-satellite arms-race in space. I think this is largely why countries such as the US have been reluctant to do so as it would then open the door and provide justification for countries such as China and Russia to develop their own systems with the US having more to lose than anyone else given how reliant the US military and US economy are on space-based communications and systems. An international system sounds good in theory but would be difficult to implement in practise. You could easily envisage NATO countries working on such a system together (which would then obviously be seen as a military threat given its dual-use potential as a weapon) but to also work with China on a joint system seems unlikely given that NASA and China don't even cooperate on the ISS and there are actually Bills that have been passed in the US I believe that explicitly prohibit any such cooperation in space between the US and China, and given the ongoing trade war this seems even more unlikely than ever in the current climate. The 'one up/one down' approach might help to address the space junk problem somewhat and could certainly help prevent things spiralling out of control anytime soon, and with the large number of constellations planned in the near future then such an approach could actually have a huge impact on reducing the number of dormant satellites over the coming decades, greatly reducing the risks of a runaway Kessler syndrome. Leaving things to private industry might very well be the best approach in the short-to-medium term.
Starlink has deobiting capability
What's the overall situation with space junk - e.g. what % of it is in LEO and will disintegrate, and on what time frame?
I know 40.000 sounds like a lot, but imagine how large the space is around earth and how small these satellites are. One of the problems is that in animations, satellites are rendered as 'points' which make them seem much much bigger than they are in reality, and therefore it seems crowded. In reality, 40.000 sattelies roaming a space that is much bigger than whole the earths surface (including seas) is not as crowded as it seems.
They filed for 40.000 but they dont need 40.000
If I didn't math wrong, that's about one satellite per 4000 km² earth surface.
@@KaiHenningsen not sure how you got 4000? 510.100.000 / 40.000 = 12752 Km2 per sattelite (or 4,923 square miles). So that gives about an area of 113 by 113 Km for one satellite (or 70 by 70 mile). Satellites are the size of maybe... 4 by 10 meters? (32 by 13 feet). In their orbits, there is even 10% to 40% more space.
Leo’s whole argument in this is “it isn’t just 40,000 satellites”, if spacex does it , everyone will. China and Russia won’t like having an American company controlling their WiFi so they’ll deploy their own. Europe will follow suit to not seem technologically inferior to the US and then follow every developing space countries
Not to mention competing private companies , this number can get to 500,000 or above. The ideal thing would be just one for all of earth but politics won’t allow for that
Starlink will help us put telescopes on the moon and beyond so its a nonissue
For real right? Like... Yes we can all see our little galaxy with our little telescopes and yeah there's man-made satellites... But we're not just looking anymore. Like soon we'll literally be on the planets they're looking at.. so like... Non-issue.
For sake of credibility, I’d like to see some ground observatory photographs that have unquestionably been affected by Starlink satellites. Until then. . . it’s just noise from vested interests.
www.forbes.com/sites/jonathanocallaghan/2019/11/18/this-is-not-coolastronomers-despair-as-spacex-starlink-train-ruins-observation-of-nearby-galaxies/
@@alessandrosavino1431 This is what you get with a long exposure instead of burstshoots and no computing to remove the satellites. That's not an issue.
@@johntheux9238 That is a relatively short exposure, a few minutes. 7-8 mags objects become visible with a 4-meter telescope in a matter of seconds. Trails can be safely removed only when they are strong, so that sigma-clipping algorithms are efficient. If they are too strong, though, they can saturate the ccd and leave artefacts even after removal. Lower intensity trails become increasingly more difficult to clip and they can be mistaken for low surface brightness astrophysical sources. Even after successfully removing the satellites, they don't just disappear. Those pixels are lost. This creates problems when modelling the selection effects of the observations.
Source: I process astronomical images for a living.
It would be nice to put some mathematical context on what those number mean. Space is really big, the surface of the globe where startlink will put the satellites is 437600000 Square Km( assuming about 80% coverage of the sphere). If you decide by 40000 satellites that one for about 11000 Square Km, that very parsed.
For those that resolutely oppose Starlink . . . ironic to be doing so on the internet while preventing same access to half the world's population that is currently offline. If the goal is to have global conversation about these things going forward, surely we need Starlink and, by extension, the other 4 billion offline people to be part of such conversations.
one satellite in a higher orbit could help those people. the 40k is overkill, only to increase speed for stock investors. don't be fooled by the charitable rhetoric.
@@phoule76 That's not true. If it was that easy, it would already have happened. Also, it is extremely rare for socially responsible companies like SpaceX and Tesla to exist in the first place. Rather than pure profit, they are motivated by a mission for a sustainable, exciting, and positive future for humanity and should be supported. Starlink revenues are necessary for a self-sustaining colony on Mars and for the future of space travel. I get the cynicism but not every company or billionaire is a bad actor (though I agree that a huge number of them are) and in ignoring this, we're only shooting ourselves in the foot while the real bad actors continue to profit from local or global monopolies.
Peter Houle but I want fast internet
@@phoule76 this is peak urban elitism speaking on your ultra high speed fiber internet
@@phoule76 Don't be fooled. We had satellite internet that used one in hgher orbit. It sucked.
starship and the future of space telescopes is bright👌🏾, it might just be time to abandon ground telescope
Hopefully that can get cheap enough for the average astronomer before the situation gets too out of hand
No it is not time. Ground telescopes offer numerous advantages over space facilities. Larger sizes, lower cost and rapid upgradability and serviceability, to cite a few. Before you argue that these characteristics can apply also to a network of space telescopes, that is still several decades along the way (even given starship and the new space revolution). This is also due to the typical approval/design/construction cycle timescale of large observatories. We cannot afford to abandon astronomy for 30+ years.
Source: I am an astronomer. And I love SpaceX. And I want them to succeed with Starlink, as long as the issues are addressed.
Alessandro Savino all that will be possible for space telescopes with star ship, low cost/rapid repair; my advice stick to astronomy mr astronomer and leave the engineering to the engineers
@@nikkokp That, sir, is a rude answer. I approached with a valid argumentation, touching already the point you raise. I don't see why I shouldn't discuss of a topic I am passionate about and of which I have respectable technical competence. Shifting an entire scientific infrastructure to space is a long and painful process of logistic and bureaucratic reorganisation, that goes beyond the "now we can launch stuff into space cheaply". Not to mention all the technologies that we still need to develop to achieve that scenario. These sorts of facilities take decades to be put into place (plan a telescope to finally use it 20 years later). As the space enthusiast I assume you are, don't you agree that our ability to study the Universe deserves to be preserved?
Alessandro Savino i don’t care, my parents taught me nobody has to be nice to you and when they choose to be nice they don’t have to choose you to be nice too🤷🏾♂️
In the end, the positives(broadband availability to nearly EVERYONE on earth) ultimately, in my opinion, outweigh the negatives. Internet availability is fast becoming a human necessity whether we like it or not.
We have a global body that regulates that staff. FCA (I think) has submitted a paper for 40 000 satelites to that body, no grey area. Problem with albedo seem silly to me, you'll be able to filter starlink just by their speed and long observations are done in orbit and will be done in orbit. The only left problem is the collision problem, so that's why the submission, the body should figure out better ways of traffic in space. Also don't overstress the problem with the debris, indians destroyed their own satellite recently. Overall, I'm so happy that crowd don't decide staff like that, even if they think they are "smart"
Ugh, no, there is no global body regulating space use. There are international treaties such as Outer Space Treaty saying you can't put weapons of mass destruction in space, you can't claim sovereignty of outer space or celestial bodies but that's about it for international regulation.
You are talking about FCC - Federal Communications Commission, which regulates radio communications in US. If you want to operate any sort of radio service within US you need their permission. If on the other hand you are Chinese state building domestic positioning system like BeiDou which nevertheless works globally, you really couldn't care less what FCC thinks about anything, they have no power over you. And FCC does not do any sort of traffic management, they only care about radio communications.
Closest to any sort of traffic management comes from NORAD, they try their best to track all satellites and are polite enough to make that data public and send a notification when they see a possible collision coming. That's it really, they can't force a foreign nation to do anything if there is a problem.
As for filtering out satellite trails, it's not nearly as easy as you think.
@@aleksandersuur9475 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_law a little bit more complicated and less alarming than one might think. Thanks for FCC reference, that's probably them
Astronomy is a lot more than taking pretty pictures the data we have about the universe, taking a picture of a black hole, measuring the the age of the universe. Finding asteroids near us. Collecting data for physicists. Astronomy is so much more than fancy pictures
Which is exactly why we need more orbital telescopes to get even better data going forward like Elon mentioned. We can look at the stars all we want but if we want to reach them and truly expand our understanding, we need launch and operational capabilities like the ones being developed by SpaceX.
@@neovi6424 space based telescopes aren't expensive due to launch costs
How about a requirement that for every 50-100 satellite placed in low earth orbit, a university/government designed and built telescope would be placed in a higher orbit (say at a lagrange point) by the launch provider at no cost.
A whole new era of astrometry could be opened.
Given SpaceX currently launches 60 sats per F9 start, that seems exceedingly generous. (Also, with 40.000 sats, that's at least 4000 telescopes.)
This is blatant fear mongering
I agree
Curious Elephants relevance just took a hit
i think that's unfair he highlighted some serious concerns about the project.
When you can't find anything wrong with the video but still want to trash it to save your preconceptions
Are you afraid of a satellite collision ??? Or is it the word China that triggered it.
This is not even an issue because the benefits far outweigh this supposed downside of interfering with astronomers view
Even for astronomy, most people are in awe when they see the satellite train. People complaining are mostly keyboard warriors...
Yup!
It would mean no more good data can be gathered from the already heavily invested earthbound telescopes.
The Black Hole photograph?
Such images will not be possible anymore. It kills an entire field of science.
If there would be just 40.000 cars on Earth, all of them equally distributed, what are the chances of them hitting each other?
Now imagine a space bigger than earth
This video presented a lot of very thin arguments like they were important ones.
A) Albedo: The only time of day when they will be visible are when they reflect sunlight. This is a brief window just before sun down and just before sunrise.
This is a window no serious astronomer uses for photography anyway.
B) Collisions: The close call collision was hardly the grave situation media has tried to make it. I guess they love big headlines. The actual issue was a non-functioning pager. This has since been fixed. Since it is ... very easy to fix.
C) Collisions: While 40000 satellites sounds like really much, they are actually (in terms of distance) quite far apart. There would be maybe 800 of them over US at the same time. If only 800 people existed in the US, would they even meet anyone else in a lifetime?
D) Competition: SpaceX broke the previous record for satellites clearly with 60 in one go. However: This was with the current state of the art rocket. Launching 40000 would require 665 more launches to complete. With Falcon9. The only way for anyone, including SpaceX, to launch 40000 is with Starship. While the Chinese certainly has some fine rockets, they are not up to par compared to Falcon9, because of the latters resuability. And absolutely noboy is close to Starship.
There is only a single runner-up worth considering her, and that is Blue Origin. And they are many years behind.
What stops other launching so many is their launch costs.
Nobody else is within an order of magnitude of SpaceX launch cost currently, let alone when starship comes online.
Again, I am hearing this "space is already crowded"... Could you please specify what particular orbits that Starlink targets are crowded or will be crowded after full deployment?
I'm so confused about what's the big deal with that shinning effect. If an observer wants to observe something, if a satellite is so faint it will interfere no matter what, the difference is it's not bright, it's just dim, you can't still see behind that object. Right?
Imagine you are looking something across the street and someone passed by, you can't still see it no matter what, if it's bright or not.
Imagine you are taking a long-exposure shot of something about as bright as a candle on the other side of the country, but shooting stars keep going through your viewfinder.
@@UnknownKnower2 The public are overreacting. When those satellites are in the right orbit. You can't barely see it. All these news and articles that show trails of the satellites are after the launch. It will takes days or weeks before they're in the proper orbit.
I think the value of having a world wide internet connection might be enough to outweigh the negative consequences of it being implemented.
With a world wide internet system, just about everyone on earth could have access to the knowledge of the internet. The most impoverished and rural communities, that currently don't have access to the current internet infrastructure, would finally have access to almost unlimited knowledge, and they could use that knowledge to significantly improve their lives.
And they said that starlink satellites prevent people from watching the night sky but in reality it's the opposite. There is a lot more people interested in astronomy now, everyone is looking for the satellite train.
I think the biggest issue is the collision with other satellites. Our economy depends on this system, and if there is a massive collision, that would be fatal.
I think the problems are far overblown. The only legit one is the light pollution issue for astronomers. As a regular man I would love to see the StarLink constellation every time I look up to the sky. It would remind me that we are now truly in the space age. And with the insane low launch cost of the Starship, we could just launch a few dozen huge space telescopes, and never again worry about visibility. With modern tech these shouldn't be expensive to build either. We no longer have to make a single giant mirror, like for the Hubble. I think NASA should ask SpaceX to design a new space telescope too. We all know it would be done fast and cheap, and would be far better than anything exists now.
One solution to calm people down would be for SpaceX to announce that they'd launch the next major space observatory satellite for free. Like it or not, the night sky WILL get more crowded as our level of technology improve and large scale space observation was the next logical step anyway.
Considering, that Elon seems to get around very well with the Chinese government and culture, he might propose a solution that helps everyone. We might not need a billion satellites up there , but a system that can be used internationally and configured to comply with nations need/wants and oc security wants.
Regardless of Huawei, surely the Chinese would want they're own broadband constellation, just as they have their own GPS, rocket launch services, etc..
As far as i am aware the 40000 you mention will never be in orbit at the same time. They have launch permissions for 42000 but a large part will be as replacement for the part of the starlink constallation that will be at the end of their life ( 5 years ) so those need to be replaced by then.
As far as I know according to space law as it is now each launching country is responsible for the satellites it launches. So international regulation of a sovereign country launching constellations is a moot point. Unless such a treaty exists which it currently does not. Good luck getting the Chinese to agree to such a treaty or the USA.
Blah blah .... put telescopes on the moon .....
At 2:17 I'm surprised that Lei didn't bring up the term of what could happen when a collision in space around our planet's orbit causes a domino effect of collisions. It's called the Kessler effect/syndrome.
Vantablack would solve any visibility problems
But not heat problems
@@agustincampillay7559 so we need a black that is invisible to photons. Should be no problem, I guess.
@@KK-up3pq I'm no expert but I think it's not really possible.
Because you need something that not only is "empty space" to light but that can also protect the satellite from the sheer cold of space
@@agustincampillay7559 it was a joke 😆
Holy cow, Space X will just bring a few telescopes up into the orbit for free. Once the launching cost will be 1% of the cost 5 years ago, astronomers will be happy.
About collisions; an automated system is the key. Tat seems easy.
But off course, panic is always good to have, if one can not get it together.
Launch cost isn't what makes space telescopes expensive
@@thewestwinger3855 it is. Launch cost makes servicing expensive. Launch cost makes cost per unit expensive. If you could send 100 telescopes into orbit not caring, if half of them break down? If you could take them back and service on Earth. That would drive cost down significantly.
Didn't mention the ethical need to provide online freedom (a human right) to the 4 billion people not currently covered by existing infrastructure.
This is a great idea for a private company but not for the world. It wouldn't be wise to let a private company dominate low earth orbit this thoroughly or rely this heavily on a private company for internet access globally. It seems like this is a project that the international community should fund, create, and control like they're doing with ISS and nuclear fusion.
There are already 10,000 aircraft in the air at any given time, flying much lower and are much brighter. Satellites can be given a black mat finish and have no anti collision lights for a much smaller light signature. Probably the best way for SpaceX to shut astronomers up would be to add a small but high powered camera to all of their satellites and share the data. Imagine the take on thousands that would be available if they did that.
For now there is thousands (if not millions) of people around the world who are in awe each time they see the satellite train.
So starlink has created more interest in astronomy than anything else, the betefits far outweight the downsides.
It's pretty obvious that barring aggressive action orbital congestion is gonna lead to a number of accidents that will semi permanently bar those orbits from any use at all.
Combining comments, I agree with all of you. There is a lot of space out there, and space telescopes offer huge benefits. People can still be skywatchers and use personal telescopes. Even games for locating them. Learn the basics of light and optics, then graduate to playing with the space telescopes!
I'd like to see SpaceX focus much less on satellites and much **more** on getting people to the MOON!
Elon seems to be obsessed with getting people to **Mars** but it makes a lot more sense to get a **moon-base** up and running first.
Competition drives innovation
99 luft balloons
Space based telescopes are SUPER expensive. The cost of launch IS NOT what makes them expensive. This is why starlink will likely never materialise AS big as he hopes as the world governments won't sit idly by and allow such
There is no adaptive optics so it should be cheaper than a ground telescope.
@Curious Elephant why can't we paint star link satellites body with something like vantablack or deep black which doesnt reflect any light?
By that sky will be with less bright satellites and it wont interrupt star gazing experience..
What do you think?
They would heat up and destroy electronics or be thrown off course by thermal emissions from the paint heating up.
You can only see the starlink constellation during dusk and dawn. Any other time the shadow of the earth blocks their light, so I really don't see what everyone is complaining about
Depends on your latitude and the season, during summer from London latitude for example the constellation will be visible the entire night right overhead. The satellites are high enough to be lit over the pole.
@@aleksandersuur9475 Exactly: ua-cam.com/video/vZiUsNQiJ1I/v-deo.html
Compare the two sets, the second ones clearly have a lower albedo
They should have read the youtube comments a year ago. We all talked about Kessler effect and impacts on observatories and rocket launch windows 😂
I would like to make a quick point here, which I feel your video overlooks to some extent:
Nobody cares about astronomy. Okay, that is mild hyperbole, but the overwhelming majority of the people and media outlets now loudly complaining about Starlink's light pollution and its negative effects on astronomy would not have cared about the subject if asked prior to all this. There is good reason to follow the money though, as part of understanding why it is suddenly an issue. In the US we call them "cable companies," but they are large powerful internet and television service providers who have defacto regional monopolies. This means they can charge whatever they like for service, and do, because there is no alternative. They also are very rude and irritating to their consumer base, and in fact are some of the most hated companies in America. Were Starlink, or similar, to come online, they would suddenly face stiff competition on a pure price/performance basis, but they'd also face the reality that they've built up a lot of longstanding bad will which would likely cause many customers to change even if there were no significant price advantage. As a result, it is almost a certainty that at least some of this bad press about starlink is being pushed by these cable companies.
Just my 2c. :)
Yeah, and I would add that starlink has created a lot of interest in astronomy by itself. There is thousands of people around the world trying to spot the satellite train at each launch.
Who's going to pay for space telescopes? Launching them is a small part of the cost
Hubble was re-purposed spy satellite, so....
There is no adaptive optics so it should be cheaper than a ground telescope.
Can we not develop a standardized space telescope that can be manufactured en masse, so to make the option more accessible to everyone?
@@ebigunso Elon is interested about mass manufactured probes:
twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1111798912141017089?lang=en
We need a global body to be in charge of low Earth orbit.
Coat the satellites with a non/low reflective material?
😂😂ooh they put a rover on the moon, they can totally rapidly catch up😂
Pretty soon I'll be able to buy a receiver and put it into my 4runner and drive right out to the middle of nowhere while enjoying High speed internet the whole time.
China's hasn't a snowballs chance in hell of building a network like Starlink the cost would kill them. Moreover Who the hell would want to use a censored Chinese internet service?
i'm not sure China will want uncensored internet available to its population
Nor Russia
@@toasterbathboi6298 the Democracy index on wiki has about 60 country's rated authoritarian
@@sausage4mash yeah. There's quite a few countries out there that don't appreciate what spacex is doing for the sake of controlling the flow of information, and I'm sure they'd all throw their support behind any legislation against space based wifi.
Can SpaceX cover their starlink satellites with nonreflective materials to decrease their visibility?
I’m sure they can find a more efficient solution but it’s gonna take a bit more time & it’s gonna require X amount of funds
Can't astronomers get real time data on the positions of Starlink satellites and use that to deduct them from their observations?
they cannot be too radical... they dont have skateboards smh...
Nope, not to radical. It can be used to regulate sattilite paths, paths of planes, self driving cars, self flying cars, tracking space junk, rogue asteroids, GPS, telecommunications, world-wide internet, financial transactions, etc.
So if starlink works then they'll have a monopoly because you know that nobody is going to let another company put up that many satellites.
Other countries will fund it. If if it was only fair play capitalism then SpaceX would put the competition out of business right now.
Shareholders ahead of morals?
How come I've never heard of OneWeb before? Where's the channels talking about them and hyping them up?
What is ethical about denying millions of people free Internet because astronomers (who have space telescopes anyway) don't want a blocked view ?
SpaceX has investors not shareholders
the average astronomer is very low of my concerns.
Very disappointed in SpaceX lately. The Starship scrap heap... Starlink… And Musk's other company building the ugliest truck in the universe!
Because of light pollution, I can only see a few stars. Fix that then I'll care satellites. Also fix the failure of governments to offer or encourage good competing internet at an affordable price.
starlink is a must no matter what
The newer version of Starlink are manouverable and i as i've read - astronomically - it will only really bother amateurs while bigger telescopes have no problem to compute out any sattelites. I don't see it as problematic and i see the bigger benefits.
The technology even for amateurs is changing rapidly, new cameras and software don't require one long exposure but are now moving toward taking many short exposures and adding them together, I get lots of images with satellites in them but "computing them out" as you say is almost trivial. If you have a hundred images of the same patch of sky and three have streaked satellites in them getting rid of the streaks is a matter of software. The single biggest challenge for amateurs is tracking the sky accurately for long exposures, moving to many shorter exposures helps reduce the need for ultra accurate tracking which requires very expensive precision mechanics to do.
I can't wait to sign up for starlink.👍👍👍♈⚔️🛡️♠️🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸
Can you make on cartosat 3 isro newly one...
I truly hope Mr. Musk ignores the fear mongers, hand wringers, and complainers that always get in the way of human progress.
don't worry about light pollution, just pay Elon to put 40000 more micro telescopes and crunch the data they spit out until you effectively have a terrascope. its not like anyone ever complained about shooting stars ruining astronomy and i fail to see the difference except that you know when these are comming.
Can you see them without telescopes ?
When everything is there tho.
Yes
In good viewing conditions, yes. In the middle of a big city with all the light pollution, no.
Facts in this video WRONG AGAIN!
You should know very well that at no point will there be 40000 starlink satellites in orbit at the same time.
3rd?
If you want to be an astronomer, go to Mars
Merica
every argument posed in this video is a fucking joke. might as well ask humans to stay indoors and never walk in the sun because of skin cancer risk
Ok boomers. Most of us can't see the night sky anymore due to light pollution on the ground, but this is the thing to beat the drum about.
Sure. They can copy and launch 40k satellite but they can't because of their rocket technology.
Were it not SpaceX, it would be some other space company involved in launching satellites. Other companies will be launching their own satellites as well, so it just means that SpaceX is first on the list of grievances about their satellites.
Google better stop censoring conservative viewpoints and start censoring anti Starlink rhetoric.
I'm sorry but the era of ground-based telescopy is over.
SpaceX can launch massive telescopes to space with Falcon heavy already. And their ability to launch will only grow exponentially larger with Starship.
This problem is just a side-effect of SpaceX enabling cheap access to orbit. So we are in a transition-phase from the era where we were stuck on Earth to the era where we have serious exploration efforts on the moon, mars and elsewhere.
Telescope-users cannot demand that we remain on earth so their view is unobstructed. They must come up to space themselves.
Starship can launch luvoir-A (15m) and starship 2.0 could launch a 30 meters telescope...
Finally I am first for the first time!
This a first world problem.
Onward to Mars!
I mean, regarding Starlink possible collision; their sats have auto detect capabilities and designed to move out the way to prevent a collision and during cargo going into orbit,
if anything, it’s other countries that should be developing better sense control - yet again Elon is bringing us innovative tech and he his the one who gets highlighted for all the wrong reasons,
you mention China, they pose a bigger threat not only in space but down on earth too - developments due to be launched 2021 for the largest most advanced aircraft carrier yet, and you want their help??