Notices by Prof. Sam Lawler (sundogplanets@mastodon.social), page 10

https://www.wonkette.com/p/spacex-drops-a-load-on-saskatchewan

This is a great article, and I am 100% delighted by their description of me!! "Lawler has been an academic Chicken Little for years about the danger of freefalling space shit, especially in a time when space travel has been privatized and so many bored billionaires would rather spend their money playing Spaceman Spiff than, say, solving world hunger or the climate crisis"

These direct-to-cell satellites require large antennae that are super reflective. They are also HORRIBLE for radio astronomy. Cell phones are designed to pick up very strong signals from close to your horizon. Satellites have their strongest signals make it to the ground when they're directly overhead, sending signals over the shortest distance and through the smallest column of atmosphere.

Then, seemingly out of nowhere, AST Mobile launched a GIGANTIC direct-to-cell satellite that is as bright as the brightest stars in the sky (this is paywalled, sorry, the next link is not): https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06672-7

This is an opinion piece I wrote about this article a few months ago (which required much back-and-forth with multiple Nature editors, plus their lawyers...sigh): https://rdcu.be/drQOU

Here comes a thread on light pollution from satellites, with a concrete action that you all can take to help push for regulation of satellites in orbit!

Astronomers have been worried about light pollution from satellites (if you've been following me for more than 24 hours, you've perhaps heard a bit about this). Astronomers spent SO much time and effort begging and pleading with Starlink to make their satellites fainter, with mixed results.

Right now the FCC has an official comment period open, until MAY 30. I have no idea if it will help for them to receive many letters from the general public, but we've written up instructions on how to do this here: https://www.kesslerrebellion.com/take-action

You can submit a comment even if you don't live in the US.

I know there are SO many things to fight against right now. But if you have any energy left, and you love the night sky, this is a relatively easy action. Thank you!

A group of concerned astronomers, artists, and policy experts have come together and formed Kessler Rebellion. Our goal is to educate the public about what's happening in orbit and advocate for regulatory changes that will avoid Kessler Syndrome, which would destroy our ability to use satellites in Low Earth Orbit for decades to centuries.

The FCC (the US federal agency charged with regulating satellites) has approved just direct-to-cell satellites: https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-advances-supplemental-coverage-space-framework-0

I ran a simulation of 400 of these satellites as seen from Toronto. From light-polluted downtown Toronto, in the night sky you would be able to see the Moon, Venus, and a bunch of stupidly bright satellites all night long on the summer solstice.

I have no idea how these direct-to-cell satellites will work, but I'd guess it will require extremely strong radio broadcasts.

Radio astronomers who have been following this are terrified: they go to great pains to make radio-quiet zones, and if giant satellites blasting super strong radio signals fly over all the time, it will destroy these radio-quiet zones.

I'm an astronomer currently fighting for regulation and better engineering of satellites (particularly Starlink) so that the night sky isn't ruined for everyone: https://theconversation.com/soon-1-out-of-every-15-points-of-light-in-the-sky-will-be-a-satellite-170427

I also have super cute baby goats!

Wow the mansplaining is extra strong today.

Oh my gosh it just keeps coming. So, I reached out to a colleague who I trust and respect on space law issues, asking them what actually the law says about space junk on someone's farm in another country. And I fully expected to hear something like "oh yes, the Outer Space Treaty says this and this" with clear directions.

Instead, they asked for the farmer's contact info so THEY COULD TRY TO BUY THE SPACE JUNK

That's the hardest I've laughed in a really long time. Wow.

Ok the latest twist in this saga: a different person at CSA emailed me and asked if I had the farmer's contact info, because they want to buy samples of it?!! This is getting more hilarious with every email

I chatted with the farmer again, and he's doing everything right! He asked for proof that the person was from SpaceX. He asked them to donate to the local skating rink. He's being careful at every step. He's doing a great job of dealing with a totally bizarre situation that very few people in the world have ever had to deal with.

I'll be heading up to visit him and see the junk over the weekend once I'm back in Sask, he seemed pretty confident that he'd still be in possession of it.

But I think what actually happened was someone somewhere else in the Canadian gov't saw a news interview and told SpaceX.

The space law experts I talked to agreed that since SpaceX has now asked for it (assuming it *is* SpaceX), the farmer has to surrender it. BUT he should ask for compensation.

If there had been damage, the US gov't would have had to compensate the Canadian gov't, but because it's a private company, and no damage happened, compensation is voluntary

I talked to a couple of space law experts to find out what to even advise the farmer on this. I had sort of thought that since it's in another country and it fell on private property, it belongs to the property owner.

But it is much more complicated than that, because of the Outer Space Treaty.

What *should* have happened is Global Affairs Canada should have contacted the US State Department, who should have contacted SpaceX.

ok jumping back into this thread because hahahaha I can't believe everything that's happening.

I found out during a live radio interview this morning that someone claiming to be from SpaceX did indeed call the farmer, and ask to get the space junk back from him. But it sounds like whoever contacted him has absolutely no idea how rural Saskatchewan works. There is no FedEx. There are no addresses. This is going to be harder to recover than they thought.

Well, I again didn't get a big giant thing done that I've been procrastinating on for months because it sucks. But I did learn a hell of a lot about space law and I have a feeling I will have zillions of news interview in the next few days, which is great! I hope this gets lots of people talking about unregulated commercialization of orbit!

Quitting work stuff for the day. Time for goats, auroras, and wondering if my trip to Toronto will actually happen or if space weather will cancel it...

I have so many interview requests that I'm actually starting to lose track of them at this point...

But I'm really glad there is so much interest. This is terrifying stuff: SpaceX and other companies are dumping stuff on the ground that could very easily kill people. Countries need to enforce the rules that already exist, and the regulations NEED to be updated to take into account how terrifyingly many re-entries are happening now.

Oh no I'm on national news again...?

https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/video/9.4226867

Here's my interview from this morning on my local CBC radio station talking about SpaceX space junk discovered by a farmer in his field in Saskatchewan: https://www.cbc.ca/listen/live-radio/1-66-the-morning-edition-sask/clip/16067265-sask.-farmer-finds-space-junk-field