Strange Lights Over South Aurora

[GilpinGuy]

Meh, sounds like "These darn automobi-whatevers are gonna kill all our horses on the trail" to me.

It's coming, like it or not.

[Irving]

I think there are some pretty legitimate concerns of you care about being able to watch space, and also further separating people from the ability to see the stars. However, still feels a bit like, "what are you going to do?" I assume that with effort, junk in our orbit can be cleaned up. I also realize that at this time, it's similar to cleaning junk off of Everest, where sure it's possible, but the difficulty is so high that dead bodies are littered around the mountain because it's so difficult.

[GilpinGuy]

I find it hard to believe that even Musk would be so naive to
invest billions into something that would so obviously be obsolete in as little as 5 years. But I don't pretend to be a genius either.

[Erni]

Starlink sats are at an altitude of 550km. The decay of that orbit is a few years. At 400km satellites will experience enough air drag to re enter in 6months or so.
Elon will be buying launches from himself every few months as long as starlink is up.
Gravity is a harsh mistress.

[BladesNBarrels]

... it's similar to cleaning junk off of Everest, where sure it's possible, but the difficulty is so high that dead bodies are littered around the mountain because it's so difficult.......

Mount Everest has claimed 300 lives, and 150 bodies remain on its slopes because of the expense and danger of retrieving them

[Hound]

Actually the sats are built to de-orbit themselves when they are no longer working or they have too much drag. They will be up only as long as they are useful. This allows them to continuously be updated. It is also going to provide Internet around the world to places it would never be possible for terrestrial options. It is not meant for urban areas. Soon they are going to be talking to each other (with in next 1.5yr) through a laser system that will greatly improve bandwidth. The efficiency will grow over time. These are the things you can do when you own the equipment that gets you to space and you don’t have to buy a new truck every time you want to send something up. Pretty amazing time to live in. Elon is a modern day Howard Huges.

[Aloha_Shooter]

Starlink sats are at an altitude of 550km. The decay of that orbit is a few years. At 400km satellites will experience enough air drag to re enter in 6months or so.
Elon will be buying launches from himself every few months as long as starlink is up.
Gravity is a harsh mistress.

Gravity is what makes the orbits work. The only natural force that will reliably cause the orbits to decay at that altitude is atmospheric drag and there's not much of it above 500 km unless the object is specifically constructed to create drag. I don't know why you think the orbital lifespan at 550km is only a few years. The Long Duration Exposure Facility was placed in an orbit of 473 x 483 km and was up for nearly 7 years -- in fact, it had to be retrieved by Columbia so it didn't even get a natural decay.

Actually the sats are built to de-orbit themselves when they are no longer working or they have too much drag. They will be up only as long as they are useful. This allows them to continuously be updated. It is also going to provide Internet around the world to places it would never be possible for terrestrial options. It is not meant for urban areas. Soon they are going to be talking to each other (with in next 1.5yr) through a laser system that will greatly improve bandwidth. The efficiency will grow over time. These are the things you can do when you own the equipment that gets you to space and you don?t have to buy a new truck every time you want to send something up. Pretty amazing time to live in. Elon is a modern day Howard Huges.

You're presuming the satellites are operational to deorbit themselves. There are a number of non-functional Starlinks that have not done so. Musk is a visionary but that doesn't mean his visions are always spot-on. Starlink and SpaceX are approaching global communications and space launch in new ways -- but sometimes those new ways are short-sighted or just plain wrong because of the effect they have on other global activities.

I think both of them -- as well as Tesla and the associated solar power investments -- are part of Musk's long term plan to bootstrap himself into a spacefaring civilization, much like Heinlein's fictional Shipstone and D. D. Harriman, and he's willing to break some eggs like the impact on terrestrial astronomers or Low Earth Orbit spacecraft in order to get people outside Earth's gravity well.

[BladesNBarrels]

Looks like the gummint better step in and start taxing those satellites to pay for the pandemic recovery and to develop a space garbage eater machine.
Yep, yep.

[Grant H.]

Don't forget folks, it's a BIG damn sky...

All the astronomy (visual and radio) hand-wringers are doing exactly that, hand-wringing because the build out of satellite constellations doesn't fit with their idea of how important they are.

[Aloha_Shooter]

Don't forget folks, it's a BIG damn sky...

All the astronomy (visual and radio) hand-wringers are doing exactly that, hand-wringing because the build out of satellite constellations doesn't fit with their idea of how important they are.

It's not that big when folks start doing stupid stuff like autonomous maneuvering. In some ways, Starlink acts like a fleet of 300 mountain bike riders who don't realize or care that there are other people using the trails or outdoors.