Notices by Prof. Sam Lawler (sundogplanets@mastodon.social), page 11

Incredible auroras all night, doesn't seem like we're in Kessler Syndrome yet (yay) but apparently GPS and Starlink internet aren't working for people.

A goat got into chicken food and I had to force feed him baking soda to try to save his life (we'll see how that goes ☹️ ).

I emailed the CNN reporter who interviewed me about satellite pollution a couple years ago to see if she's interested in the space junk story.

And it's Vaisakhi/Khalsa Day, so I'm going to get amazing free food!

HAHAHAHA

I called the farmer who found the pieces! He is super mad that SpaceX is saying that this is safe, when clearly very large pieces are making it to the ground (and this kind of thing is TOTALLY ACCEPTABLE according to every launch and reentry regulating body. Wild.)

He said I could come take a look at the pieces after he's done seeding in a few days (because, Saskatchewan). He also really liked the idea of sending a bill to SpaceX for littering on his property. This could be a lot of fun!

I just got an email back from one of the CSA people I contacted yesterday, and they just sent me SpaceX's media inquiry email. Given than literally every article that talks about SpaceX has "SpaceX did not respond to a request for comment" in it, this is...less than helpful 🙄

HAHAHA they added my interview in to the redone version of the new story: https://regina.ctvnews.ca/from-outer-space-sask-farmers-baffled-after-discovering-strange-wreckage-in-field-1.6880353

And apparently it made national news(?!), because someone I'm on a committee with in Ontario said she saw me. I think it's time to go to bed (and hope for no more reentries...)

Every chance I've had to interact with satellite operators in conferences, I've asked them about their plans for dealing with solar storms (I'm particularly worried about Starlink, which requires dozens of maneuvers per day to avoid collisions. What if a large fraction shuts down for a few hours?!)

The universal response to my inquiries has been "Don't worry about that, it'll be fine!"

I guess we're going to find out very soon. https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/

I'm now going to email everyone I know who works at CSA.

I'm *super* curious what is going to happen with this (probably nothing).

But if I can get SpaceX in trouble for dropping garbage on Canada from orbit, then I will use every power I have to make that happen!

Interview done. I emailed Jonathan McDowell @planet4589 to ask if he had info on a possible reentry, and he immediately found it, and even had the ground track already calculated! Thank you for this meticulous tracking, Jonathan! (Because the satellite companies sure as shit aren't sharing this info!)

It was a Dragon Trunk from the Axios 3 mission, reentered on Feb 26. The reporter is going to send me contact info for the farmer who found it, so at least I can tell him what it is.

I am talking o a reporter about this in a couple hours: https://regina.ctvnews.ca/from-outer-space-sask-farmers-baffled-after-discovering-strange-wreckage-in-field-1.6880353

This is about an hour away from my farm, so this'll be a fun conversation, and yet another great opportunity to tell a lot of people about what a huge problem we have with unregulated commercialization of orbit. (Also I just redid my slides for my public talk next week, this is going in!)

As another crewed launch is about to happen, it's a good time to re-share this essay I wrote a couple months ago about how I just really can't get excited about rocket launches anymore.

https://theconversation.com/an-astronomers-lament-satellite-megaconstellations-are-ruining-space-exploration-215653

Hello Toronto - I'm giving a public talk there in 8 days. Want to hear me yell about satellites for an hour? Come say hi!

Still no new babies. I'll be checking at 2am again. SIGH.

still none...

...still no new babies.

No new baby goats this morning (just the 4 from the last few days). The mama who's been *gigantic* for the last month is due today, so hopefully she'll have lots of healthy babies! I predict 4 (and I predict she'll have them at the most obnoxious time...I have lots of meetings today, but I have even more meetings tomorrow that are way less flexible, so today would be great!)

Not snowing anymore. Going to take a quick outside screaming/check-on-goats break before a faculty meeting starts. I'm super grateful I can do all this via Zoom and check on goats in between, but this is too much Zoom for me...just 3 more days of this stupid time-suck committee (and writing up reports after) and then I'm DONE with it

(to be fair, I've learned a lot from being on the committee, I just wish it was a 2 year term instead of a 3 year term...almost done)

Oh what the fuck it's snowing now? Blah.

(But we need precipitation of any kind...take a deep breath and accept it gratefully!)

...Still no new goats. Guess I'll be blearily running out to the barn in between Zoom meetings and cancelling things if there are babies

But today it's steadily raining! The land needs it so badly, you can almost hear the trees relaxing.

It's also funny to observe which animals hate the rain and which don't care.

goats: deep rain hatred
horses: don't care
llama: does he even notice it's raining?
chickens: hide in the coop
ducks and geese: partaaayyyy!

Still no babies! Ugh this poor mama is so uncomfortable, and I will have to get up at 2am again. SIGGGHHHH. At least she's the last goat due to have babies for a little while, and maybe we'll be fully above freezing for the next batch...

Still no new goats. Put the very pregnant goat back outside in the rain because she was annoyed about being in the barn. Now she can be annoyed about the rain instead...