“Don’t worry, you can just build one on the moon. You can even pay me to use my rockets to get there.” - Elon
Capitalism!
Great. Musk is building a Sophon.
Fuck Leon Skum
I’m sure Musk is perfectly willing to turn certain constellations off at specific times… For a price, of course.
Sending so many satellites also requires so many rocket launchers that Google passed on it because it was too polluting.
Starlink is the poster child of “fuck you, I got mine.”
Google is the second largest shareholder of Space X.
- get rid of “do no evil”
- invest in evil
- ???
- profit!
starlink wouldn’t have a leg to stand on (in the US, can’t speak for elsewhere) if isps were held to installing/maintaining/upgrading infrastructure that was already paid for by the federal government decades ago and then the isps just didn’t do the work.
That’s a nice thought, but
- Starlink has no old infrastructure
- Rural and remote customers are difficult to wire up
Even in the best case where US was close to 100% wired up like we paid for, Starlink would have a market in remote areas world wide, RVs, aircraft, ships
This, I’m both very rural and in an RV at the same time. Starlink is literally my only means of playing games. The only other even remotely viable option is LTE internet from something like T-Mobile but out here the towers don’t really have much capacity so I might be able to play the game fine and I might just start disconnecting Midway through a match randomly as the internet struggles to even load a basic web page
Welp, I guess we’ll all have to suffer the consequences so that Lordkitsuna can game in the middle of nowhere. Truly first world problems.
https://www.space.com/starlink-satellite-reentry-ozone-depletion-atmosphere
Isn’t Starlink also too expensive because you have to replace the satellites every 5 years? As in you’d have to sell to basically everybody on earth to be profitable. And they charge 50Euros a month, almost twice as much as I currently pay, and I’m satisfied with my current provider.
50Euros a month, almost twice as much as I current pay
Wow Canada sucks in in our ISP choices
Cries in long island
I have one option that isn’t 4g wireless crap… It’s $110/month for 500mbps… It was $80/month but they felt the need to make more money by eliminating their lower tiers and “forcing” you to upgrade… I just suddenly had a 500mbps plan and $110 bill without asking them to change anything…
Their target market is people who don’t have a better option, not people who already have fibre to the door.
And those people are famously wealthy.
Yes, RV travelers, cruise lines, multiple militaries.
Starlink is expensive, but it’s not that expensive.
And they’re running at a loss.
Its their data thats worth money. Now its collectable.
Don’t forget all the fun chemicals they leave in the atmosphere when they deorbit.
We’re so fucked.
In fact, increasing Earth’s albedo by pumping certain types of chemicals into the higher layers of the atmosphere has been proposed as a possible geoengineering solution that could slow down global warming.
I wouldn’t be surprised if the entire project was architected as a way to completely sidestep regulatory approval and test geoengineering theories before climate change really starts to pop. Elon and his fellow plutocrats are undoubtedly sociopathic enough to do that.
Is it weird I agree these are terrible and yet also hope this spurs the end of ground based observation in favor of a larger orbital presence?
We could and should be doing both ground and orbital radio telescope observations. One really interesting idea I’ve seen floated is to put one on the far-side of the moon; it’d be shielded from all our radio emissions but, of course, it would be somewhat suspectable to interference from the sun for weeks at a time.
What I’ve never understood about Starlink is how it’s better than existing satellite internet beamed from geosynchronous craft… like, geosync is crowded (especially over North America and Europe), but it’s not so crowded we couldn’t put a couple more transponders up there. Objects in geosync rarely have the astronomical side effects that Starlink is apparently causing. It would even solve the Starlink issue of having to have an expense af receiver with active tracking… just nail up a stationary ku-band dish that doesn’t need to move ever. This is already solved technology.
The problem with geosynchronous orbit is that you need to be at a high altitude to maintain it. That increases the packet round trip time to a receiver on the ground. Starlink satellites orbit low enough to give a theoretical 20ms ping. A geostationary satellite would be at best 500ms. It’s fine for some tasks but lousy for applications that need low latency, like video calling.
Is there any way to improve that? Or is it a hard limit due to physics?
The geosynchronous satellites are about 650 times higher than Starlink satellites, so the speed of light is a significant limiting factor.
Geosynchronous orbit is 35,700 km (3.57 x 10^7 m) above sea level. At that distance, signals moving at the speed of light (3.0 x 10^8 m/s) take about .12 seconds to go that far. So a round trip is about .240 seconds or 240 milliseconds added to the ping.
Starlink orbits at an altitude of 550 km (5.5 x 10^5 m), where the signal can travel between ground and satellite in about 0.0018 seconds, for 3.6 millisecond round trip. Actual routing and processing of signals, especially relaying between satellites, adds time to the processing.
But no matter how much better the signal processing can get, the speed of light accounts for about a 200-230 millisecond difference at the difference in altitudes.
Unfortunately it’s a hard limit due to the speed of light. Theoretically you could use quantum entanglement to get around it, but then of course you wouldn’t need the satellites anymore.
no, you couldn’t. You can’t use quantum entanglement to send information. Only random noise.
Sorry, I meant theoretically as in “at some distant point in the future where we’ve figured out how to make it work.” I probably read too much science fiction.
Science fiction quantum entanglement is not the same as real life quantum entanglement. Science fiction has spooky action at a distance, real life doesn’t.
The speed of light is the speed of causality, the speed of information. It is physically impossible to send information at speeds greater than the speed of light.
it physically cannot work. ever. That’s just how entanglement works. We know that much.
That’s not true either unfortunately
In the past 6 months, Starlink satellites made 50,000 collision avoidance maneuvers. They now maneuver 275 times a day to avoid crashing into other space objects.
They use an on board AI to calculate the positions, but each time they course-correct, it throws off forecasting accuracy for several days. So a collision isn’t an if, it’s a when, and suddenly we’re in Kessler Syndrome territory. Or maybe enough people will eventually wake up and realize Musk was an actual idiot all along.
But until then, great, low pings for video calls. Hurray.
This is completely factually inaccurate. 2 minutes on Google will help you learn but seeing as how you’ve been spewing crap all over this thread I don’t think it’s worth my time to even bother helping you understand.
Cite sources please?
Can you debunk it for the rest of us?
It’s never been cheaper or easier to launch, ironically enough thanks in part to Starlink.
How about we check back in on your comment in say, oh, 5 years, when we become forcibly earthbound, victims of Kessler’s Syndrome? Because by then, a starlink satellite will collide with another creating a chain reaction of collisions, birthing an ever-growing cascading field of Elon’ space debris bukkake all over the Earth’s face.
But hey, Pocket Rocket Boy has got to have an excuse to keep launching so he can continue collecting his government welfare checks. $15.3 billion since 2003 and climbing.
You don’t understand Kessler Syndrome. Starlink satellites are in an orbit that requires maintenance or it decays rapidly. These orbits are used on purpose as they are “self-cleaning”.
Kessler Syndrome doesn’t even mean that we can’t fly through an orbit, only not occupy it for fear of collision. Space is incredibly, ridiculously large, and the chance of a departing rocket being struck by debris is miniscule.
In any case, a catastrophic multi-sat collision would only result in a meteor shower. These things are designed to re-enter in 5 years even in normal service.
I live in rural Canada and Starlink is the only reason I’m able to post this. It’s been a tremendous asset to our lives, and as an aerospace enthusiast I’m all on board as well. As an astronomy enthusiast I’m less impressed but forsee a push into more, larger space telescopes.
In any case, a catastrophic multi-sat collision would only result in a meteor shower
Previous collisions have resulted in debris that intersected with higher orbits. While those debris themselves will decay, if they collide with something in a higher orbit, a significant portion of the resulting debris will be there for a very long time.
Look at the apogees resulting from a major collision in 2009 in fig 3 on page 2
You shouldnt use starlink because you can’t trust the company. Thats unfortunate you can’t get other service.
I’ve never seen an intelligent comment talking about Kessler syndrome, it’s something idiots seem to latch on to and prattle on about in the comments, until someone who has at least watched a YouTube video about it corrects them.
The scale at which we build radio telescopes on the ground simply isn’t possible in space.
Just to add, radio telescopes easily have diameters of several 10 to several 100 meters, you won’t put that easily in space. And even if you do, maybe one, not tens of them. And these are often used in network as well for interferometry to have higher spatial resolution, so that would be gone as well.
A couple of satellites can make a larger telescope than we could ever build on earth, and you avoid the natural interference as well as the the interference from other satellites (star link isn’t the only source of interference…).
Not with that attitude.
Or altitude.
Not easily, perhaps. But it’s certainly possibly. We already have space technology for unfolding small packages into large sheets. Not to mention, you don’t need a single 100m collection surface when you can accomplish similar things with many smaller surfaces spaced apart. See the Very Large Array.
No it’s utterly pragmatic.
The future of space exploration is in space.
To me Elon Musk is like the real-life, slightly less dramatic and slightly less evil Handsome Jack out of Borderlands
I don’t know which has said wilder shit honestly.
Ugly Musk
Less evil than Handsome Jack?! Jack’s at least a good guy in the Presequel. Was Elon ever good?
He certainly seemed good a decade ago. Look up how we internet folk spoke about him when he was the fun guy who wanted to explore Mars and provide electric cars, not the neonazi who ruined the internet!
Funny how he had many of us fooled. I think it was more my naivete that led me to think he was legit. For some reason I’ve kept returning to the idea that an altruistic billionaire isn’t an oxymoron 😑 as many have said and i will dutifully repeat: nobody becomes a billionaire because they’ve worked that many hours or made that giant of a contribution to the human race–they only acquire that much by withholding a significant share of the profits they’ve received from the other people that did the actual work to make the money in the first place.
Good point
I’ll never get over Handsome Jack killing Bloodwing. Fuck him.
“Kirkland brand Dr evil” has been my go to.
That’s not fair to Kirkland though, lol! They never treated us like that asshole 😛
He’s Weyland.
I thought he was X.
Less?
Fuckin space garbage is what it is.
Yes it was impressive that they landed a rocket again once, but the quantity of launches and satellites is doing nothing good for anyone. It should’ve been a stepping stone for better technology, but instead they’re just mining money. Privately owned space engineering is a disgrace to humanity.
Space engineering used to unite even the worst opponents as with the international space station, but now those institutions are underfunded, while billionaire space-musk can shoot his loads into the atmosphere without any regard to the rest of the worlds population living inside said sphere.
Tax the asshole already.
I was excited about starlink when it was announced, but already it’s way too expensive, already bows to actual totalitarians and isn’t affordable on the ocean and not available in remote places without a license.
And with more satellite constellations planned by amazon and others, it seems the kessler syndrome is just a question of time.
On the Kessler point, Starlink birds fly at an altitude where they will deorbit in 4-8 years if they go dead, so that particular orbit will always be fairly clean, and if a Kessler event does happen, the debris will deorbit in a reasonable length of time.
A portion of the debris from collisions would enter elliptical orbits though so might need more time to de-orbit. But loosing all LEO satellites and even just 4-8 years without use of LEO would be an absolute catastrophe. You could still launch satellites to medium or geosynchronous orbit though.
Where will they go after they deorbit? Do we get em back?
They burn up on re-entry, at least they’re supposed to.
Thanks, atmosphere 🙂❤️ that’s interesting design! Will any of the debris reach the planet or is it designed to break apart in a particular fashion?
Will any of the debris reach the planet
Not in a solid form. There may be some undesirable effects though at greater numbers, we don’t really have good data. Here’s a blog post by the European Space Agency talking about a couple studies on the effects of satellite reentry. Note that the satellites they simulated were significantly larger than the Starlink satellites.
My understanding is they’re designed to completely disintegrate.
already bows to actual totalitarians
Care to elaborate?
Turkey and Russia. It’s clear that profit seeking corporations would bow, but then Elon screams bloody murder when reactionary forces in Brazil manipulating social media get censored.
What about Turkey and Russia? Starlink doesn’t work in Russia.
I feel like that explanation is missing a verb or something.
To bow, or bow down or kneel for. But I’m not going to google that for you haha. The basic problem is that starlink theoretically has immense power so it becomes a political tool. He bows to those ones but not to legitimate democratic interests.
Especially once starlink and others can make landline based internet connections obsolete by pricing them out - which they are not currently doing though, but it seems only a matter of time with competition. Basically we could get to a situation where there are only like 2 or 3 internet provider practically controlling internet globally.
They won’t be able to price landline based connections out as long as they have to replace their satellites every 5 years. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re running at a loss currently.
This. I wish I had more than one up vote I could give for this comment.
Enshittification happens to all things, sadly.
It happens really early with that fuckin’ weasel in charge.
When people talk about taxing these horrible people I think of tax as being a euphamism
the quantity of launches and satellites is doing nothing good for anyone
Except for the millions of people accessing internet via Starlink to whom the alternative is either no internet, slow internet or extremely expensive internet.
If it can interfere with large aperture ground telescopes… it would be a shame if those ground telescopes grew transmitters and started interfering back.
What’s up with some meme communities and people not posting memes on them?
This is not a meme community.
A place to share screenshots of Microblog posts
It’s called microblogmemes
And? See the description of the community and don’t create fuss out of nothing.
You realize a meme is an image or anything else that’s shared right…? The second you post any image here, it automatically becomes a meme whether you intended or not.
Never miss a chance to milk some of those anti-Elon upvotes
All worth it so lord Musk can push his shitty memes to remote tribes in the Amazon.
Don’t worry, greed ensures that Kessler Syndrome will get them in the not too distant future. Sure hope you aren’t reliant on GPS or other satellite services, but at least, for a shining moment, shareholders got some value. /s
Starlink is a very low orbit. Even if something like that happened, it would clean itself up in like five years
Sorry, you’re probably right. It’s a thing I expect to be problematic if the future. Of course all problems will burn up in the atmosphere…
Not wrong, and yet small parts of that ‘orbit’ would kinetically increase, in a Kessler sort of way…
When 2 satellites collide, the pieces don’t all stay on the same altitude. Even though none of them will be in a stable orbit, all it takes is for one piece to smack into a satellite that’s a bit higher up before it de-orbits, and boom, now you’ve got a debris field that won’t de-orbit.
Pieces don’t gain kinetic energy in a collision. Even if they collide and get sent off in an “upwards” direction, it’s not up very far relative to the orbit, and that’s just a less circular orbit at lower speed that will burn up even faster
For you scenario to work, there would have to be a chain reaction
- collision, sending a few pieces upwards
- during that small number of orbits they survive, collision, sending a few pieces upward
- repeat many times
Each chance is remote enough, and ricocheting pieces only go so far, and any higher satellites they could reach are also low orbit, that I can’t imagine how remote the chances of this happening are
Kessler syndrome is a real worry, but not in this low orbit
The satellites are constantly giving themselves small boosts to maintain orbit and then are deorbited in 5 years when they run out of fuel. It should be well less than 5 years to resolve a LEO Kessler type situation from starlink.
and isn’t that a nice thought, but no, it raises orbit fairly naturaly…
GPS/GLONASS/Galileo are at ~20,000km vs starlinks ~500km, all the LEO satellites would be fucked but global positioning would be fine. Sounds good to me.
Yup, but scatter might be bad…Still, in principle, better satellites live…
Wouldn’t interference from all the junk in between be at least somewhat of a problem, particularly given that the average GPS receiver already isn’t super sensitive nor accurate?
GPS works under tree cover, I doubt some spread out space junk is much of a problem.
Unlikely. There would be very little, if any, interference with signals unless they were extremely precise. The issue is physical stuff getting destroyed by debris.
Think of a very light sprinkling of rain, but imagine if every raindrop was solid and moving faster than a bullet. Walking out in it would be deadly, but likely wouldn’t affect your cell phone service. Well, besides the tower itself and every structure in the area getting absolutely shredded.
Yeah, I suppose I’m over-estimating the density/amount.
