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   Prof. Sam Lawler (sundogplanets@mastodon.social)'s status on Saturday, 31-May-2025 06:09:56 JST Prof. Sam Lawler

   Oh hey cool, an op-ed I wrote is now published!

   TLDR: we need *fewer* satellites with *longer* operational lifetimes. Engineers: that's your challenge.

   https://www.livescience.com/space/astronomy/what-goes-up-must-come-down-how-megaconstellations-like-spacexs-starlink-network-pose-a-grave-safety-threat-to-us-on-earth-opinion

   • Steve's Place repeated this.
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     Antiqueight (antiqueight@mastodon.ie)'s status on Saturday, 31-May-2025 06:24:17 JST Antiqueight

     in reply to

     @sundogplanets At first read that as that we needed there to be more satellites with short lifespans and was very confused. You mean fewer over all and also longer lives for those that exist... right? I get it... honest...

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     Mike P (fentiger@mastodon.social)'s status on Saturday, 31-May-2025 06:48:15 JST Mike P

     in reply to

     @sundogplanets Engineers? They can do it, no problem. It's the investors who need to be convinced.

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     Dharma Dan (dharmadan@aus.social)'s status on Saturday, 31-May-2025 06:49:10 JST Dharma Dan

     in reply to

     @sundogplanets great article, and I hope this issue starts to get more traction. You mention only one confirmed SpaceX debris find; did this Australian one turn out to be something else? https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-07-29/space-junk-found-in-nsw-snowy-mountains-paddocks-/101277542

     edit- I'm a numpty - this was suspected to be from a manned mission, not a LEO satellite.

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     Steve's Place (steter@mastodon.stevesworld.co)'s status on Saturday, 31-May-2025 06:57:32 JST Steve's Place

     in reply to

     @sundogplanets Just spitballing here.

     The satellites would be larger and more expensive. They'd still want thousands of them to create a worldwide network. Then we'd have thousands of larger satellites occasionally firing thrusters while crisscrossing the sky and interfering with ground-based observations.

     Not sure.

     A solution would be to stop doing this and to pay for ground-based relays. We can do that, too. We don't have a billionaire strung out on drugs funding it.

     The places where ground-based coverage is impossible could be serviced by drones. They don't stay in the air as long, so there would be expense there, too, but no costly launch vehicle, so it's a short-term win, I think. But Elon can't monetize it all for himself, so I figure it won't happen.

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     Steve's Place (steter@mastodon.stevesworld.co)'s status on Saturday, 31-May-2025 07:03:57 JST Steve's Place

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     @sundogplanets The lag time is significant. Ukraine uses it in war. They won't downgrade.

     There would be a way to use fewer of them, targeting areas of conflict, while ground-based and drone systems could be used everywhere else.

     Elon's DOGE hacked the nation. He can set his own price now. Hm. It might work.

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     Prof. Sam Lawler (sundogplanets@mastodon.social)'s status on Saturday, 31-May-2025 07:03:58 JST Prof. Sam Lawler

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     • Steve's Place

     @steter There is already satellite internet from geosynchronous orbit. It's just slower than Starlink. But Starlink is absolutely not viable the way it's being built, so I guess that's what remote users will be stuck with.

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     Steve's Place (steter@mastodon.stevesworld.co)'s status on Saturday, 31-May-2025 07:05:06 JST Steve's Place

     in reply to

     @sundogplanets A good read, by the way. I hope you get lots of eyes on it.

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     feld (feld@friedcheese.us)'s status on Saturday, 31-May-2025 07:29:18 JST feld

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     • Howard Chu @ Symas
     • Steve's Place
     @hyc @sundogplanets @steter will be interesting to see what Apple's design is going to be like as they allegedly are preparing to get into the low orbit satellite internet business as well under the codename Project Eagle
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     Howard Chu @ Symas (hyc@mastodon.social)'s status on Saturday, 31-May-2025 07:29:19 JST Howard Chu @ Symas

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     • Steve's Place

     @sundogplanets @steter yep, you can't beat the speed of light. Lower orbits give lower latency, higher orbits give higher latency. People demanding shorter delays will keep paying for those lower orbits.

     Using balloon-lofted relays seemed like a pretty good idea, but you can't rely on them in warzones. And they probably can't stay aloft for decades at a time either. There's really not a lot of great alternatives, if you want wide coverage and low latency.

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     Steve's Place (steter@mastodon.stevesworld.co)'s status on Saturday, 31-May-2025 12:33:20 JST Steve's Place

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     • Trantion

     @trantion @sundogplanets I know that. You could schedule them so there was a continuous stream - a strip of satellites. That doesn't mean the entire planet has to be shrouded in them.

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     Trantion (trantion@masto.ai)'s status on Saturday, 31-May-2025 12:33:21 JST Trantion

     in reply to

     • Steve's Place

     @steter @sundogplanets There's no way to have a cluster of LEO satellites over a particular region. Sure, you could have them over a smaller range of latitudes, but they still need to go round the world.

     Plus, you can't have a cluster of satellites in orbit ready to be sent to cover a war zone. It costs more fuel to change an existing satellite's orbit than to just launch a new one