https://science.slashdot.org/story/23/11/05/0330226/spacecra...
I can't see any upsides to this venture.
Sorry, but this is a very first world, urban perspective. Please have a little empathy. I live in the US and have only one choice for internet from home and it is lousy. Starlink has been a dramatic change for us. This is the situation for many, many people in the US and around the world.
Starlink is absolutely offering something that is NOT available terrestrially.
There's people importing dishes to use in cities in non covered countries today because of the condition of local networks in cities and the per bit costs
Check the steam download stats for top ISP's. It might surprise you the performance Delta with alternatives.
Telcos are complaining about roll out and spectrum costs. Some of them couldn't survive the 4G transition
The market can prove me wrong! :)
> Aside from some people who might live in rural areas in large countries that are hard to cover georgraphically
> There is no need for StarLink generally.
You point out that there is a market for StarLink and then you say it isn't needed. I'm confused. At any rate, no point in arguing about it. If there is no need they will lose a lot of money. If there is a need, they will make a lot of money. Time will tell.
The simple fact it, it is superior in many ways for a huge number of application and just denying the is never work.
As for the 'visual pollution' its mostly just not true. For the waste majority of humans its invisible basically always outside of a few situations.
For most terrestrial telescopes it doesn't really matter much. Broad visual surveying telescopes take a slight hit but its not like they will be no longer working. Many of the issues SpaceX has addressed and made the problem way less impactful.
Some very sensitive radio telescopes are also slightly effect and having some regulation like we do on earth for electronic devices would make sense.
The idea that its some horrible thing just doesn't hold up. The benefits outweigh the cost by a gigantic amount. Starlink is used to give good internet to native Americans who life away from infrastructure. The worth of these things are far, far, far higher then the few 10s of millions we lose in observatory performance.
How is providing access to the internet not an awesome thing for society?
There are millions of people in my same situation for which this system is doing good.
Also airplanes and light from cities pollute the sky infinitely more than these satellites do.
Also, without starlink Ukraine has said they would have been defeated quite quickly. (Ie fighting without a gun).
There are many upsides.
I'm sorry-- what? Surely a totally global satellite network available in remote regions such as mountains and jungles would just be a force multiplier for these kinds of activities.
> Also, without starlink Ukraine has said they would have been defeated quite quickly. (Ie fighting without a gun).
What? :
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/09/07/ukraine...
> There are many upsides
Please let us know when you've found some.