There was a similar situation when a Russian private company sent up a satellite that would deploy reflectors to purposefully make it one of the brightest objects in the night sky[1]. I image some astronomers breathed a sigh of relief when the reflectors didn't properly deploy.
In radio astronomy, there are a few small protected bands to keep some portions of the spectrum quiet for scientific purposes. There is no such "spectrum allocation" for optical astronomy. Like chopping down the rain forest or putting plastic in the ocean, we may improve our quality of life through external costs. Governmental regulation permits us to partially control for these externalities. Perhaps if we find ourselves in a big mess like with CFC's and destroying the ozone layer, we will have a public call-to-action to create regulations.
So, what's the rub? Ground based telescopes are vastly cheaper than space-based alternatives for optical and radio astronomy. The difference in cost is often more than two orders of magnitude. If ground based telescopes become less efficient or less productive, there will simply be fewer scientific discoveries made within a flat budget. If the public is required to increase the budgets of NASA, NSF, ESO, and ESA to maintain their desired level of scientific output, then that in itself is an external cost that SpaceX and other companies are passing on.
Has SpaceX said anything about the paths they will follow? Can they change mid-deployment?
You can see the general pattern in a really cool webgl animation on the main site: https://www.starlink.com/
And yet I, probably like everyone else who isn’t an astronomy enthusiast, haven’t ever looked at a light in the sky and known it was a satellite. They’re subtle, not dominating the night sky by any means, at least insofar as an untrained modern human can tell. Starlink would up the number of satellites by ~2x, perhaps, but would that be enough to change the basic equation?
Perhaps, but that's irrelevant to this discussion which was initiated by competent experts in their field. Not like protests against 5G which are based on dodgy YouTube videos.
Starlink will have a significant impact on the global night sky based solely on the approval of one agency of one country of 8% of the World's population. Even if you as a layman don't perceive it to be a problem in your daily life, doesn't that just seem... wrong? If North Korea had taken such a step there would be sanctions.
Something that could have immense impact on astronomy, the interest of the population in the cosmos, and a permanent change to the night sky shouldn't have some consensus, at least morally?
>It should be contingent on approval from a regulatory body that is appointed/controlled in some democratic way and reflects the will of the population,
Do those exist, much less in the current US administration?
>and if the benefits to society outweigh the risks, then it should get the go ahead regardless of consensus by astronomers.
...unless there is a way to accomplish the same thing for 99% of the population that is better implemented or doesn't affect the sky.
Additionally, this seems to me like an overall positive effect for the public at large. Being able to see satellites zooming across the sky is pretty cool, provides educational opportunities beyond what normal stargazing offers, and reminds people that there's something to aspire to (and look forward to) beyond what's on the ground.
It will have 144 times the light-collecting area of Hubble. Nice graphic comparing the new generation of extremely large telescopes here: [1].
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirty_Meter_Telescope
[1] https://en.es-static.us/upl/2018/04/comparison-telescope-mir...
The NSF budget for astronomy is $250M/year.
Revenue projections for Starlink reach as high as $50B/year.
It’d be nice to have Internet way out there. But at the cost of my (and everyone else’s) pure night sky?
I'm personally so excited to see these, I think it will be a breathtaking, tangible emblem of one of the first planet-scale systems that humans have built.
Oh no, 15 tiny lights in the sky. Not really a blight.
I care about light pollution a lot and think most people are missing what I had when I grew up (Canadian/American border in the 90's). I wish cities had strict codes and <1% of the waste light they do now.
But dark skies are not dark at all - there are about 10000 visible stars. A few moving dots is not going to ruin the experience.
I'd rather see some regulations against all the lights in the Walmart/shopping mall/grocery store parking lots which have completely ruined the night sky in my area.
It's also a global problem.
Regardless, we should be moving our telescopes to space. Much less interference of all kinds.
I watched a recent pass of the Starlink satellites, and now that they're oriented near their operational directions, I could barely see them. I only noticed them because I knew right where to look. Unlike the flashing lights of passing aircraft which were a lot more distracting.
I'm perfectly happy to permanently screw over ground-based astronomy if that's what it take to get us into space.
Just build the damn telescopes in space. And stop thinking single-mirror scopes like Hubble — you could build huge multiple-segment mirrors in space — much bigger than anything on earth.
