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Comment by chmaynard | Hacker News Reader

I find Starlink's satellite network horrifying. I will try very hard to avoid using products or services that rely on it. Probably a lost cause.

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Alright, I'll bite. Why?

I mean, I suppose get it. I find CenturyLink horrifying and would love almost nothing more than for them to go out of business. I don't get much choice about who manages the cross-continental pipes my data moves through so I don't worry about it too much.

There is already way too much space junk orbiting the Earth. Now SpaceX is planning to launch literally thousands of new satellites into low orbit, polluting the skies for astronomers and everyone else on the planet. Yes, the FCC approved it. That doesn't make it right.

Take a look into the latest news about those topics. The sats are in a low enough orbit that they'll de-orbit pretty quickly if they stop boosting themselves, they shouldn't really be a space-junk issue. They should be pretty invisible almost all of the time, especially with the changes they're working on. Those pictures you see if a string of bright lights close together are only for a short while during launch, that's not the entire sky of the future.

Definitely issues worth being worried about, but it does appear that SpaceX is taking them seriously! And you have to admit that the potential good that a truly global high speed network is capable of is worth considering.

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