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Comment by gambiting | Hacker News Reader

>>Would be cool if one day you could get your connectivity needs handled by a single company cheaply, almost anywhere in the world

That sounds like an absolute distopian nightmare and the last person on earth that I want to be running this service is Elon Musk. In general I find it horrendous how a single american company can pollute the night sky for every human being in the world, whether they can use their services or not. Technologically I'm in awe of what Starlink achieves, it's an incredible feat - and yet I still think it's a travesty that it's allowed to exist at all.

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> the last person on earth

Being overly dramatic just makes you sound silly.

> I find it horrendous how a single american company can pollute the night sky for every human being in the world

Except of course that with the visible eye you never even see Starlink and 99.99% of humanity has never seen a single sat, and don't notice it. And of those who have most have seen a short bus of sats for a few seconds. And somehow those people are still alive.

The sky is fine and not polluted.

There are some concerns about earth based astronomy but they are often overblown. And sats are just one of many things humans do that make astronomy harder.

More regulation to take into account astronomy make some sense, but SpaceX has been a model citizen in that regard.

Have you seen them in orbit?

I look at the sky regularly in a low light area and I've not seen any "pollution", but maybe I don't know how to look?

Yes. They are only visible after launch, like a string of slow shooting stars or pac man food that lasts 3-4 minutes.

After they reach their target orbit they go into dark mode and you will never see them unless you operate like a top 10 in the world telescope.

I was walking my dog a few months ago right after dusk and randomly saw the starlink train, it was a linear constellation marching across the entire sky, from horizon to horizon, and lasted at least 2 minutes.

It was both amazing and disturbing.

The "train" is only visible for a week or two after launch. Once the satellites get to their operational orbits they are not visible. So you'll never see the thousands of satellites that are up there; they can't possibly ruin your view of the night sky.

I can spot the satellites (sometimes) if I look up at night, but it's not like I see anything more than a bunch of dim lights beaming across the sky. So I don't think that counts as light pollution

There are plenty of satellites visible to the naked eye, not just Starlink ones.

I remember as a kid (far before Starlink existed) that we'd always go stargazing when we were camping (far from any city light pollution). And the longer you'd watch, the more you would see 'stars move'.

The ISS is also very clearly visible. It's pretty wild to see it re-appear every 90 minutes or so. Insane to think how fast that thing is moving.

I have actually! At night you can see the "train" of satellites when the light reflects off them just at the right angle - it's like a long line of dots across the horizon. Of course that is nothing compared to what problems this is causing for astronomy.

> pollute the night sky

That pollution is much much less than the light pollution from cities and aircraft (both visual and noise).

If we’re going to care about pollution of the night sky it seems more effective to take on those cases that are already very intrusive.

The problem is that these satellites pollute the night sky in exactly those areas that are currently not polluted by other sources. So if you go to an International Dark Sky Place to do astrophotography, you end up with a whole bunch (technical term) of little Starlink dots / lines all through your images.

Agree that fixing broader light pollution is a separate and important issue.

You missed the point I was making - it's not about absolute amount of pollution, it's about the fact that Musk's company is polluting the sky for every single human on earth, despite the fact it does not provide their service for everyone on earth. People in many countries around the world now have to deal with his swarm of sattelites to look at the sky, because of an American billionaire's fantasy. That doesn't seem fair to me.

The international space treaty allows all countries to launch sats. People in the US and Musk have to look at Sats that Russia, India and Iran launched as well. Its a shared resource.

99.9999% of human who live have never seen a Starlink sat so this pollution is really not all that crazy. In fact most people find it interesting when they accidentally see one.

Also sats have been visible since literally 70 years, and many are more visible then Starlink.

>That sounds like an absolute distopian nightmare and the last person on earth that I want to be running this service is Elon Musk.

Given that Musk was the only person with the ambition, capital, and ability to deliver such a project, you're basically saying that you'd rather have Starlink not exist at all than to have Musk in charge.

>it's an incredible feat - and yet I still think it's a travesty that it's allowed to exist at all.

Confirmed: You'd rather have every Starlink customer go dark than have someone you've been told to dislike provide those customers with a service they willingly sign up for.

Dystopia, indeed.

>> you're basically saying that you'd rather have Starlink not exist at all than to have Musk in charge

No, that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying having Musk in charge makes it distopian, but even without him at the helm I'd rather it didn't exist.

>>Confirmed: You'd rather have every Starlink customer go dark than have someone you've been told to dislike provide those customers with a service they willingly sign up for.

No, I'd rather not have my sky polluted to satisfy an American billionaire's fancy, even if he has willing and paying customers. The night sky is a common good of every single person on earth, and he's playing with it to make money. I'd have the exact same complaint about any competing constallation, and in fact I am going to have it because Amazon is building a competing service themselves.

> night sky is a common good

But that good shouldn't to serve millions of people with something they need.

You rather have it totally unused instead at all.

> I'd have the exact same complaint about any competing constallation, and in fact I am going to have it because Amazon is building a competing service themselves.

I have bad news for you because there are about 10 other major constellation in development and those are only the ones that are a public.

Not a single country has put major effort into stopping it.

Pretty much every country agrees that this space should be used to serve the needs of its people.

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