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This is the best photo of Venus and Jupiter I have seen over the last few days. Amazing👌 Just look at all those colours!

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No one's dismissing it - in particular, the US authorities forced several adaptations to Starlink in order to reduce the risks of mega-constellations e.g. insisting that satellites fully burn-up on re-entry in order to minimise risks to the v1.0 humans on the ground.

It is normal to be wary, and to insist on proceeding with caution. However many of the anti-Starlink posters are just hiding their hate-boner for Elon under a pseudo-scientific veneer. E.g. mention Starlink on Reddit and you're guaranteed "Kessler Syndrome!" and "Astronomy!" replies. But posts about the other mega-constellations currently in deployment do not seem to attract the same "science-based concern" :shrugs:

Both space stations and Hubble are in the debris path to deorbit. As are a lot of other things that people would prefer not get shredded or have to burn all their fuel dodging broken dreams.

So, a lot can happen in 5 or 10 years. Or however long it takes for the full evolution to occur. And the geopolitical ramifications could cause all sorts of strife here on the ground above and beyond the collateral damage in orbit.

To dismiss the potential consequences of a worst case scenario would be very, very foolish.

Yes. And how long will this cascade last?

5-10 years?

Chip in some maths here to prove your point.

A Starlink satellite should naturally fall out of the sky in 5ish years.

Sure they are.

Put enough stuff up there and eventually you'll get a cascade. Spread that out amongst various operators, both friendly and unfriendly, and you won't even need as much stuff to get to that point.

The majority of aluminum being deposited is from solid rocket boosters that they do not use. The few tons that might end up from sats burning up is not the same dangerous kind that's released by SRBs and millions of tons, vs a few tons, gets released daily (again not the SRB kind) by asteroids.

This is a good example of haters twisting the truth, desperately looking for absolitely any crumbs of reason to hate while ignoring the good that is done, like supporting the civilians in Ukraine that lost access to basic communiction (not internet, just basic telephone) that you entitled rich brats takes for granted.

Hate filled and entitled af. I dont hate people like you, I just feel sadness and pity.

SpaceX is the single largest operator of satellites

Not in LEO. Because atmosphere and gravity exist.

A LEO satellite is less risky for Kessler. All debris should deorbit in 10 years or less.

SpaceX has to play by the rules.

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They are SpaceX Starlink satellites.

So are they SpaceX's satellites or did SpaceX just help them get up there?

The graph of the number of conjunctions involving Starlink is somewhat concerning. And the spike in conjunctions resulting from that Russian ASAT "test" shows just how quickly things can get out of hand.

https://twitter.com/ProfHughLewis/status/1506670025528250379?s=20

Oh so Ukraine has to play by the rules and Russia doesn’t? That seems a little naive.

Exactly, think of the term dark matter as a placeholder term designed to assist in creating a mathematical model of spacetime.

Placeholder terms are recognition that science (and maths) rely on incremental progress in our understanding of the Universe.

There are Nobel Prizes awaiting the minds that can provide a coherent understanding of the phenomenon that doesn't interact at all with electromagnetism but does so strongly with gravity.

A future more complex mathematical model of spacetime will assist astronauts to make the journey through a wormhole to an interesting exoplanet and perhaps interact with another species. Hopefully a peaceful interaction.

We inhabit interesting times.

"Paid haters"? You sound nuts, dude.

> Starlink will also deposit tons of aluminum and other metals in the atmosphere

This is a perfect example of a complete failure of perspective. About 1 million kg of meteors burn up around the world every day. So what made you conclude that Starlink satellites burning up would cause a significant increase in the amount of metals in the atmosphere? Nothing at all. You're willing to say anything as long as it's anti-Elon.

> “These big low-orbit internet constellations have come from nowhere in 2019, to dominating the space environment in 2023,” says McDowell

It didn't come from nowhere though, Elon Musk unveiled the constellation that would eventually become Starlink Gen1 on Jan 2015, so it took them 8 years to get to where they're today. It's just in the first 4 years they didn't launch anything since they had to finish the design and the production line, also mature Falcon 9 reusability, in order to put them into a position to launch these satellites quickly.

> Even the Hubble Space Telescope, which orbits more than 500 kilometers above the Earth’s surface, is vulnerable to these satellite streaks, as well as those from other satellite constellations.

The article neglect to mention that this is because Hubble's orbit has decayed because it's no longer being regularly boosted by Shuttle, now it's below the main shell of Starlink which caused the problem. SpaceX and NASA is already looking at plans to reboost Hubble using Crew Dragon which would solve this problem.

> “Starlink is the densest patch of space that has ever existed,” Lawler says. The satellites are constantly navigating out of each other’s way to avoid collisions

This is incorrect, while in operational orbit Starlink satellites are positioned in such a way so that they avoid each other naturally, no active collision avoidance is necessary. The only time they need to do active collision avoidance is when they encounter space debris, dead satellites, or satellites without propulsion ability.

> “If there is some kind of collision [between Starlinks], some kind of mishap, it could immediately affect human lives,” Lawler says.

This is overly dramatic, Russia blew up a satellite between ISS orbit and Starlink orbit, it didn't hurt anybody in orbit or on the ground, nor did it degrade any space based services such as GPS. It did create a lot of work for people who's job is to steering satellites and space station around debris. So yes in a way it did affect human lives in that it caused tons of overtime and postponed vacations, but that's about it.

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99% of the risk is in higher altitude satellites and in non-active satellites and other debris.

Starlink could cause a lot of problems for 10 years and some problems for 50 years, but wouldn't disrupt space access on the long term.

I commend you for trying, but I'm pretty sure you're never going to get through to people stuck in the Musk personality cult. A person who unironically says things like

> Human advancement requires sacrifices

after all the environmental degradation we've seen in the last 200 years of industrialization, and 50 years after "Tragedy of the Commons" was first published, can probably never be made whole. As for the callous and inhuman attitudes you find with Starlink fanatics, this is what I think of when they talk about what they call "human advancement".

Never before has a new industry worked so hard to destroy the very science that birthed it.

SpaceX wanted to get paid like everyone else. About the drones, they were exported with license for general communications. SpaceX did not have ITAR permission to export weapons systems. Dual-use technology can be legally dangerous. So Shotwell said to stop doing that.