There are already enough disturbances that a 30 minute exposure is impractical. Astrophotographers tend to use exposures around 30 seconds. It's true that more satellites mean that astronomers will have to tweak their observation methods and/or reduce their observation windows, but it's not a showstopper. At worst it's an inconvenience to them.
If we were to employ the reversal test[1], the concern about astronomy would be a non-problem. Imagine if the entire planet was covered by the equivalent of 4G cell networks. And imagine if some astronomers asked us to destroy those networks so that some of their work could be made more convenient. Imagine all of the people affected by this network. All of the lives saved by emergency calls, all of the remote locations made digitally accessible to the rest of humanity, all of the scientific experiments in jungles, deserts, tundra… cameras and microphones and sensors reporting data through this global satellite network… imagine all of that destroyed so that some astronomers could be relieved of an inconvenience. That is absurd. Yet that is the world that some people want to live in.
It's so clear to anyone whose view isn't so parochial, so local in time and space, so blinkered by where and when they were born. Does anyone think that astronomers will still be preventing the launch of satellite constellations in the year 2100? In 2200? In 2500? Clearly not.
I'd rather the improvement happen in my lifetime than after. Launch away.
If we were to employ the reversal test[1], the concern about astronomy would be a non-problem. Imagine if the entire planet was covered by the equivalent of 4G cell networks. And imagine if some astronomers asked us to destroy those networks so that some of their work could be made more convenient. Imagine all of the people affected by this network. All of the lives saved by emergency calls, all of the remote locations made digitally accessible to the rest of humanity, all of the scientific experiments in jungles, deserts, tundra… cameras and microphones and sensors reporting data through this global satellite network… imagine all of that destroyed so that some astronomers could be relieved of an inconvenience. That is absurd. Yet that is the world that some people want to live in.
It's so clear to anyone whose view isn't so parochial, so local in time and space, so blinkered by where and when they were born. Does anyone think that astronomers will still be preventing the launch of satellite constellations in the year 2100? In 2200? In 2500? Clearly not.
I'd rather the improvement happen in my lifetime than after. Launch away.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reversal_test