What a load of garbage. The fact is there are plenty of manmade light sources in the sky already. And as for the exhaust of putting up the Starlinks how about subtracting all the exhaust fumes from the cars from people who now work at home instead of driving into work each day?
And yes, if Starship works, expect telescopes to move into space big time. The big cost of a space telescope today is making sure it works for a long as possible since it costs so much to launch it. Make the launch cheap and they you do not have to spend the money needed to make a space telescope today.
It doesn't really seem like a big deal to me. The emissions due to that rocketry is nothing in the grand scale of things. Think of all the emissions that are spent globally on maintaining terrestrial telcom infrastructure.
5000 tons of Aluminum? so what? Aluminum is non-toxic as far as I know. Besides, won't these satellites will be completely disintegrated by the time they reach the ground? It's not like they're going to to be crashing into houses and stuff.
As for the brightness of the satellites, who cares? Can't you just write a computer program to track the satellites and exclude them from the picture? I can't imagine it's like they're shooting a long exposure on an analog camera.
This is like a NIMBY sort of complaint, where you have the opportunity to complain about it because you're aware of the few explicit downsides. Meanwhile all the massive implicit costs of accepting the alternative (terrestrial infrastructure) are swept under the rug. Out of sight- out of mind!
A study was done on alumina in the atmosphere and 5,000 tons/yr doesn't seem dangerous. The study notes that because of the 3.8 g cm−3 density it falls quickly compared to other particles. The density is much higher than the chlorofluorocarbons that stick around and damage the ozone layer. It assumes ~4,000,000 tons/year that causes 3.7% ozone depletion. 5,000 tons/year might have effects, but it doesn't look like a show stopper in terms of cooling and ozone depletion. Hard to draw firm conclusion since they studied a purposeful geoengineering plan, but it doesn't add up with a sanity check.
Oh wait never mind the sun will eventually explode and the earth is and always will be doomed. The existential risk isn’t “what will we effect?!”, it’s the opposite: if we do not effect change we’re all dead and all life on earth will snuff out with us.
Inaction is not an option. We must become spacefaring and we must learn to dramatically alter the climates of planets, or all the ecology that has ever existed will die and every living being that ever lived will have died in vain.
Whilst I hate facts as much as anyone else, the sun has several billion years left. Having anything in space has occured entirely in my lifetime. I think it is a good idea to keep earth livable for a few thousand years as a backup plan.
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[ 3.7 ms ] story [ 29.0 ms ] threadAnd yes, if Starship works, expect telescopes to move into space big time. The big cost of a space telescope today is making sure it works for a long as possible since it costs so much to launch it. Make the launch cheap and they you do not have to spend the money needed to make a space telescope today.
5000 tons of Aluminum? so what? Aluminum is non-toxic as far as I know. Besides, won't these satellites will be completely disintegrated by the time they reach the ground? It's not like they're going to to be crashing into houses and stuff.
As for the brightness of the satellites, who cares? Can't you just write a computer program to track the satellites and exclude them from the picture? I can't imagine it's like they're shooting a long exposure on an analog camera.
This is like a NIMBY sort of complaint, where you have the opportunity to complain about it because you're aware of the few explicit downsides. Meanwhile all the massive implicit costs of accepting the alternative (terrestrial infrastructure) are swept under the rug. Out of sight- out of mind!
https://wwwn.cdc.gov/TSP/ToxFAQs/ToxFAQsDetails.aspx?faqid=1...
https://acp.copernicus.org/articles/15/11835/2015/acp-15-118...
Oh wait never mind the sun will eventually explode and the earth is and always will be doomed. The existential risk isn’t “what will we effect?!”, it’s the opposite: if we do not effect change we’re all dead and all life on earth will snuff out with us.
Inaction is not an option. We must become spacefaring and we must learn to dramatically alter the climates of planets, or all the ecology that has ever existed will die and every living being that ever lived will have died in vain.