They are actively working on reducing reflectivity but there will always be an impact and honestly any effort to improve it will be well appreciated by me. However, even though I love the work astronomers do and the view of a clear sky into the stars, I must say I prefer global Internet availability over making astronomers clean their data from satelite datapoints.
Most discussions about this leave the goal of Starlink out of the picture. If this can bring Internet access to every spot on Earth, the immediate benefit for humanity is clear.
On the other hand, Starlink is going to make use of their next-gen Starship, and with a viable amount of business space launches will become cheap enough for launching lots of cheap specialized space telescopes.
> However, even though I love the work astronomers do and the view of a clear sky into the stars, I must say I prefer global Internet availability over making astronomers clean their data from satelite datapoints.
That’s great because apparently nobody but SpaceX has any say in what happens.
Are you unaware of the federal licenses required for these satellites to be deployed, or do you just mean they were granted without taking astronomers' wishes into account?
Edit: This is a sincere question. Several comments on this story indicate people don't believe there's any regulation as to what happens in space.
Edit 2: While I'm editing things, here's the FCC Record for the original Starlink proposal in case you're curious what some of the objections brought up during the original comment period were. https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/FCC-18-38A1.pdf Mostly it looks like other satellite operators worried about interference, orbital debris concerns, and there was a note about potential impacts on radio astronomy.
To be clear, I'm not actually saying this is all the fine. I think there are discussions to be had about the obviously worldwide impact. However, the point that I'm making was that "nobody but SpaceX has any say in what happens" is not true.
Certainly people can complain that current international treaties, federal regulations and so on aren't sufficient, that the decisions reached by regulatory bodies were incorrect, or ill informed, etc. But first they should be aware those decisions existed and did take into account input from a variety of sources, and it's not just 'if you can get it to space, do whatever you want'.
Not sure if you're aware, but it's widely publicized that SpaceX was granted licenses, waivers, and extensions that other companies were not, nor have been in the past. So yes, they have licenses, but it seems lobbying and Elon's fame has far more to do with this than anything.
Radio astronomers were all over it well before the first Tintin test satellites launched.
The optical astronomers weren’t in the habit of commenting on satellite launch licensing and got caught on the back foot. Now the media campaign is basically optical astronomers complaining that “there is no process” because they didn’t get involved in the process in time.
The same process the other people use: respond to the applications while they are open for comment. Just write a letter with pen on paper if that’s the level of funding you have.
30 minutes away from Microsoft main campus in Redmond WA, (and just a bit further away from Google/Amazon campus' in the area)
Best available internet is a 3mbit down, 1-if-you're-lucky-mbit up DSL connection from CenturyLink with latency that jumps into the 2.5+ second range when it rains hard. Which, fortunately it never does in the pacific northwest. :-D
And no, traditional satellite is a no-go, even if it was an affordable option. We have these things called "mountains" you see, and the satellites are only at certain spots in the sky, sadly occluded by a couple billion tons of rock and tree.
To reiterate, this is within commuting distance of "big tech" HQs.
Starlink can't come fast enough. Existing ISPs need to feel the pain of screwing their customers so bad for so long.
I'm within line-of-sight of Google HQ (I can literally see their campus from my porch, less than six miles away) yet my only wired internet option is AT&T DSL. Comcast offered to add my home to their network for a paltry $22,000. I look forward to Starlink creating a universal competitor even if I'm not a customer. It'd be even better if rockets needn't be involved in creating a competitive marketplace, but that doesn't seem likely.
I don’t understand, why is it not feasible to bring faster internet connectivity to suburban America with traditional infrastructure? Why do we need an entrepreneur to launch a constellation of satellites into low earth orbit—ruining the night sky for astronomers globally?
Countries like Finland and Iceland can bring decent speed internet to rural populations where it rains as much (or even more) then in the pacific north west. So I don’t know what makes America so exceptional that they can’t bring good internet to their population.
Since the problem is lack of internet infrastructure, as the market has failed in providing decent internet to a significant portion of the population, I suggest that the government subsides (or even funds) the infrastructure projects required for bringing the portion of the population a decent internet connection that the marked has failed.
That seems like a pretty obvious policy change that a mere layperson can come up with in their couch. I’m sure a civil engineer can do better though.
I don't know how much you can say it's a market problem as such, a role is clearly played by regulatory capture combined with/leading to/reinforcing monopolies. Local american governments granting big ISPs de jure or de facto sole rights to law down cable in a town means it's very hard to break in to the market as a hypothetical newer, smaller ISP.
I don't know that monopolies and rent-seeking wouldn't show up anyway with laxer regulation, but it's something to be taken into account.
Like I indicated, I’m not a civil engineer and am in no position to be coming up with a policy my self. I can say though—and I might be wrong—that America has some policy that might be hindering traditional infrastructure being build to provide decent internet connectivity to some parts of the population. I’m sure there are civil engineers though that can provide examples of better policy that may help solve this issue.
Claiming that the market has failed in a industry that has been utterly dominated by government and that was never actually a real market is pretty rich. This started out as basically a state monopoly that was then partially privatized but local monopoly laws were held in place.
Just throwing more money at utterly gridlocked system is not the solution.
So all you need to do is change the policy determining billions of dollars of infrastructure and profits with powerful entrenched interests? Where do I sign up?
This system is not primary for suburban America, but for places that are further out. But if suburban America is so shit, then why not solve this problem as well.
It is absolutely not a "mostly-US problem". We have the same problem in Australia. A lot of places only option was crappy ADSL. Then new (centre-left) government announced a project (NBN) to install fibre-to-the-premises (FTTP) to the majority of the population. Massive, very expensive project, that was going to take a long time. Quite predictably, the centre-right party attacked it as costing too much money. Six years later, the centre-right win election, and thus far only a small number of lucky people had got their FTTP installed. New government decides FTTP was too expensive, replaces it with crappy fibre-to-the-node (FTTN) instead, which slows to a crawl whenever the node is oversubscribed (happens a lot due to the growing popularity of video streaming). And it tells other people that any fixed line solution was too expensive for them, and forces them on to wireless or satellite. Some people even got told they were losing their ADSL and having it replaced with a less reliable wireless or satellite connection.
... poor internet bandwidth or accessibility in remote region... is a "US only problem"??
I make it a point to not sound snarky or sarcastic on HN, we have a pretty good standard of discourse here - but that just seems a ludicrous statement to make, and I'm frankly curious what consideration went into it, as opposed to a knee-jerk reaction?
I don't think technology will solve all the world's ills; I agree that regulation of markets is a useful measure to undertake in certain situations; I don't find "Socialist" a swear word; but if ever there was a problem with a technical solution, then accessibility of internet in remote solution is almost the canonical use-case. Regulation of markets will not bring the Interwebs to remote or underdeveloped parts of the world.
Now... if we want to discuss whether bringing the Intertubes to all the world is a worthy goal or not; whether it is worth the compromises and risks a massive constellation of satellites will impose; sure, that's a productive tops to examine. But if we accept for sake of argument that internet in remote or underdeveloped parts of the world is a goal, I'm curious to see how market regulation will make that happen better and faster than a giant freakin' laser... I mean, giant freakin' constellation of satellites :).
Local market regulation is what is blocking any competition. The absurd believe people have that whenever something isn't working, markets will need more regulation is so absurd.
There are literally regulation that are preventing markets from even existing. But your solution is more regulation?
The quality of internet service falls off precipitously as you leave urban city limits.
It's better than it could be - when we decided to move "to the country", we almost bought a property where the only internet option was HughesNet. From all reports, HughesNet is incredibly expensive and barely usable. A big plus for the place we landed is that we can get "rural wireless broadband" - basically a point-to-point wifi signal bounced off of a solar-powered relay on a hill, to a set of towers on a faraway ridge, run by a folksy two-man ISP. It's expensive, unreliable, and slow compared to what I left in SF. But it's better than HughesNet and there's no data cap.
I don't know what to expect from Starlink, but I'm hopeful. Even if it's just a reliable 10Mbit connection I'll be ecstatic.
I feel for you. Our holiday house is about 30km beyond the middle of nowhere, but the 4g uplink is reliable. Plus we have to share it with very very few others...
If we ever need more, I'll probaby do just like the folksy two-man ISP you describe...
More supply drives down prices. Don't even mention current satelite Internet. Those operate via GSO satelites with seconds of ping and a way higher pricing considering SpaceX wants to be competitive with broadband pricing.
My mom's house in rural Arkansas. I mean basically if you live outside of a large city you have 1 choice of internet access and it's usually hot garbage and over priced.
Usually you are able to save the tasks that require fast internet connection for later. If you find your self on a slow internet connection while uploading a large video file, you can hold that up until you find somewhere that has a fast connection.
You also often have the option of lowering the bandwidth requirements (e.g. switch of the video call for a voice call at a lower quality). I find fast internet a luxury rather then anything while traveling.
And you can also not use wireless ever until you can connect to a cable.
What kind of logic is that? Sure, humanity has existed before global internet. But now that we can have it, there are 100s of reason to do so.
You see it as a luxury, but so is the ability to buy clean water or even get it of the tab. Things that are luxury in the beginning get cheap enough so many can use it and that whats called progresses.
Is there a reason you need fast internet connection in forrests/on the Arctic/while sailing in the middle of the ocean?[1] Is there a reason why much of Africa or Asia can’t invest in similar infrastructure as Europe has done to provide internet to where people live?
1: Maybe it could be handy to transmit large amount of science data I suppose, but they seemed to be able to cope with this limitation while photographing the black holes
> is there a reason you need fast internet at home? now imagine being some place that isn't home.
My internet needs away from home are vastly different then at home, so I don’t understand how this is an answer.
> crushing poverty?
It is highly likely that the same poverty is going to prevent locals from using Starlink. Besides lacking infrastructure in large parts of Africa and Asia has often been the result of bad policy, or wars, not poverty (or poverty as a result of war). A lot of African nations are catching up on their infrastructure projects, and I see no reason why they will skip internet connectivity as they build up their infrastructure (given that most African nations have infinitely better policy—and a lot fewer wars—now then say 30 years ago).
I used to live on a boat. It'd be nice to have access to the internet when I do so again even coastally. I can't even imagine how much of a boon getting internet access across an ocean would be. Not only to help with boredom, but also to get heaps of up to date weather observation and prediction data to do routing.
I’ve never navigated across oceans so I don’t know this, but can’t you already get (albeit slow) internet connection at sea via satellite? Or at least sufficient connection for accessing weather data?
Regarding boredom, I know a lot of sailors bring with them physical media, i.e. books, DVDs, video games, etc. knowing the internet connection will be slow.
I know getting fast internet at sea would certainly make life better for people traveling across oceans a lot, but the question is: Is is worth sacrificing the night sky for astronomers over?
Yes, but you're already bandwidth constrained when getting grib files through a satphone which often means using coarser grids over a smaller area (constraining your options) less frequently. Not the largest limitation, but better bandwidth would be useful.
As you point out, it's largely a value judgement between worldwide fast internet and ground based optical astronomy and it's one I'm conflicted about. I comfort myself with the thought that because of the expense these constellations either will bring internet access to large numbers of people justifying continuing satellite replacement or they'll fail and the satellites will be gone sooner rather than later, but as I say, I'm conflicted.
This is crazy. Why do you need fast internet away from ground based infrastructure?
Are you just acting dumb or trolling? Because its easy to come up with 100s of reasons why you would want internet in those places. You can't seriously claim you don't see the need for that.
What you need and what you want are vastly different. Off course I want fast internet wherever I am, but I don’t need it. And I’m certainly not willing to sacrifice the night sky for astronomers for it.
I have disposable income, most of what I do I don't 'need'. So yes, I want faster internet, period. Now if you want to morally shame me for not living like a month that is fine.
You make it sound as if a cloud of eternal darkness will rise. Some parts of astronomers will have a somewhat higher rate of bad signals, that they are already having to work around anyway. And we can iteratively improve both sides to make it less of a problem.
At the same time this change will help drive 10x more science overall by the simple economics of scale the space industry will reach.
Most airlines will end up using it to stream telemetry as a backup and for areas where primary telemetry communication channels aren't viable. IIRC, it doesn't work near the poles but for everywhere else it would be good for knowing the last position when a flight vanishes.
