Starlink

Have you seen Gravity?

SpaceX propaganda says they are “working with astronomers” but the astronomers don’t appear to be at all satisfied. There so called dark satellites aren’t.

Astronomers take on startling

It’s not gonna matter though. As usual, the process will follow the golden rule. As in, he who has the gold makes the rules. And ole’ Elon has a LOT of gold.

I'm not being adversarial. I've
actually signed up for Starlink. I've been thinking about it for awhile and your post convinced me to proceed.

I just know from experience how Musk operates (and most all of the other billionaires too). They have enormous egos and always think that what they think is best for them is best for the entire world too. Nothing new about that.

Yep, there sure has been a collision. See below.

The same "big sky" argument used to be made about IFR flight until there were a couple infamous collisions back in the 50s. That's when the modern ATC system was developed.

All it takes is enough density of flights in an area for long enough and there you have it. As of Sept 2019 there were around 2200 sats in LEO. Elon alone has more than doubled that since then.

Also I would tend to be at least as worried about deliberate destruction of these sats as accidental collisions. As others have said, certain governments, a couple of which are very space capable, don't like this at all. Once you create a bunch of debris where these things are operating it's likely to be a self sustaining chain reaction.

Could the Starlink sats' ion thrusters move the sats to avoid a collision with an object with a known trajectory. Sure, given enough time. But the thrusters have very low acceleration rates, estimates are around 2 m/s per hour of operation, with a total delta v of around 200 m/s. 2 m/s is about 4.5 mph so it takes a Starlink sat an hour to change its velocity equivalent to that of a fast walk. An aggressor with conventional chemical thrusters could "accidentally" make that change in a fraction of a second. Or just take a couple out while testing a laser. Oops!

I really think that ground based wireless internet would be a better solution for most rural areas. I've had that system and it's very stable. And secure from attack by other countries. It's just not commercially viable in lots of places because there aren't enough customers. There is a simple solution to that, subsidize it. That's how rural electrification was done in the 1930s. Talk about life changing.

Now that I'm thinking about it I think I'll keep my DSL as backup to Starlink.

lsat collision

From what I read they're moving north to south and are around latitude 38 now. That would take them down to around Charlottesville so maybe another degree or so for me.

I didn't understand the map I saw on Reddit where there was a dead zone extending up through the Appalachians though. Maybe lack of base stations? Typical for Appalachia to be left behind if true. It will happen when it happens.

Originally posted by offgrid I really think that ground based wireless internet would be a better solution for most rural areas. I've had that system and it's very stable. And secure from attack by other countries. It's just not commercially viable in lots of places because there aren't enough customers. There is a simple solution to that, subsidize it. That's how rural electrification was done in the 1930s. Talk about life changing. Now that I'm thinking about it I think I'll keep my DSL as backup to Starlink. lsat collision