gsck
10 months ago
I wonder if it would be possible for SpaceX to set up something for telescope operators to request a "dark spot", turning off the transmitter for x amount of time at a specific position. I imagine the satellites will have to know roughly where they are in space.
Doesn't prevent the issue of optical telescopes being able to see them, but at least for RF telescopes it should solve that problem
bendigedig
10 months ago
I wonder if it is possible for starlink as a company to be socially responsible.
user
10 months ago
snypher
10 months ago
Not at all - they launch rockets right next to a wildlife habitat, and it's not like they are really that useful, compared to scientific/exploration launches. Yes Starlink internet is 'cool' but is it worth the damage?
s1artibartfast
10 months ago
Thats subjective, but I would say yes. I would happily pave over the entire wetland for a fraction of the value provided by the launch facility.
Given that in reality starbase has negligible tangible impact on the wetland, the whole concern seems overblown to me.
Teever
10 months ago
How much environmental destruction would you consider unacceptable for an endeavour like Starship?
How do you justify that amount of environmental destruction by a single organization like SpaceX in context of the tragedy of the commons?
s1artibartfast
10 months ago
How much is an interesting question because it is difficult to quantify - There is no "unit" for ecological destruction. I said above, i think it is worth paving over the entire estuary, which is about 2 square miles.
If I were to put an upper limit on it, it would probably be 100x that.
As for justification, I think that the common value of the local habitat is miniscule, and the common value of SpaceX is immense.
some small number of people use the wild refuge for bird watching and the like, meanwhile SpaceX internet provides millions of people access to education, telemedicine, employment, and/or entertainment. Further development will help advance global Astronomy and encourage space exploration.
Teever
10 months ago
You say this as if the refuge is a thing that lives in isolation and isn't connected to the broader environment in which it exists.
Do you think that it is possible that the destruction of some distant ecological system could destroy this one? And by extension do you think that it is possible that the destruction of this system could destroy another one?
s1artibartfast
10 months ago
I have no misconception of isolation. I studied postgraduate marine biology before following the money into biotech, and have about a dozen friends in state environmental agencies.
There would be some consequences, but within limits. The earth wouldnt stop spinning and explode. There would likely be some marginal impact to migratory birds and local fishery, but it wouldn't cause mountainous in Tibet to go extinct or anything like that.
Anyways, Costal wetlands usually change constantly under natural conditions. Most of our static wetlands are already extremely unnatural, because cities and states have gone to great lengths to modify them in some ways and keep them from changing. They are about as natural as central park or a zoo.
Teever
10 months ago
Is a tragedy of the commons scenario possible here?
s1artibartfast
10 months ago
yes, I think the tragedy of the commons is letting a few birds and deranged environmentalists get in the way of launching rocketships.
I see it the same way as if someone was holding up building a hospital because of an anthill, while children died waiting.
ryan93
10 months ago
Natural erosion destroys orders of magnitude more wetland than spacex.
squigz
10 months ago
Yeah and the key word there is "natural"
inglor_cz
10 months ago
Not for me. If natural outcomes of type X and frequency Y are tolerable to us and we don't fight them, it indicates that this sort of outcome should be tolerable in general.
serf
10 months ago
the method of action is an important variable as well.
the wildlife of a wetlands that undergoes a drought has a chance to spring back once reintroduced to water.
the wildlife of a wetlands that is chemically poisoned will not spring back to life without either lots of time or remediation efforts.
'on the box' both situations look the same : no wildlife -- but they're not.
The reasons matter, more data than just statistical prevalence is needed here in order to assess the damage realistically in the attempt at scoring man-made disaster against natural disaster.
inglor_cz
10 months ago
This is a good correction, thank you. Yes, modality matters.
squigz
10 months ago
> I would happily pave over the entire wetland for a fraction of the value provided by the launch facility.
They're not that important anyway. Oh wait.
s1artibartfast
10 months ago
I know you are trying to be snarky, but I genuinely think that it is not that important. See my sibling comments.
mgiannopoulos
10 months ago
People living in remote areas like having fast internet
bendigedig
10 months ago
Sounds like their previous generation satellites were 30 times more responsible though.
fortyseven
10 months ago
And I'd like having no taxes, but here we are.
inglor_cz
10 months ago
For me, it absolutely is.
I find the recent religious switch towards worship of nature somewhat disconcerting, even though I like nature in general.
But one particular short stretch of Texan shore vs. space abilities of humanity as a whole doesn't seem a balanced problem to me. Starlink saves Ukrainian lives in battle and can save other lives in distress. It can also make countless human lives more comfortable, and a lot of businesses viable or more profitable. It is not a 'cool toy', it is one of the upcoming communication backbones of the planet, and it even protects some natural lands from being dug up, because it doesn't need laying of long cables across the wild.
I just cannot see how this could be considered as important as convenience of a few sea birds, who, if they are bothered by the launches, can fly a few miles away and be content again. After all, there is abundant wildlife around Cape Canaveral after 60 years of intense space activity - it is not as if rocket launches are a horrible Holocaust of all living things around. Nature adapts to changes. It always had.
bendigedig
10 months ago
I am just going to leave this here for context:
Wildlife in 'catastrophic decline' due to human destruction, scientists warn - https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-54091048
inglor_cz
10 months ago
Two wrongs don't make a right. You won't help damaged/destroyed nature in some places by banning relatively harmless activities in completely different places. You will only harm net human prosperity.
Spaceflight isn't anywhere close to, say, mining, when it comes to its negative effects on nature, not even 1 per cent as bad. And we still cannot simply ban mining if we want to continue our civilization.
bendigedig
10 months ago
I'm not going to argue with you on this particular case as I don't know enough about the local area and can't be bothered to do any research.
However, my comment was really to provide context for some of the sweeping statements you were making, e.g.
> I find the recent religious switch towards worship of nature somewhat disconcerting... > ...a few sea birds, who, if they are bothered by the launches, can fly a few miles away and be content again... > Nature adapts to changes. It always had.
If you want my two cents, I think people are turning to nature because:
1. It's threatened with virtual annihilation by the externalities of our hegemonic economic system. 2. Many people have to deal with their (natural) human nature being ground down as they are forced to file off their rough edges to fit into the position of cogs in an uncaring economic/totalitarian machine. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of people feel relatively powerless to do much about their internal personal situation, but see that analogous processes are destroying the natural world outside of themselves and feel that's something worth fighting for too.
phil21
10 months ago
Way more useful to humanity than the exploration launches. At least currently in the timeframe of a human life.
It’s been game changing for a few friends and family. Perhaps the science missions may be game changing to their great grandchildren but that’s gonna be a tough sell to many.
basementcat
10 months ago
There is (was?) some degree of coordination with personnel at the Green Bank Telescope and the VLA related to the Ku beams transmitted down from the satellites. However the newer satellites have higher power transmitters and even the sidelobes may cause undesirable interference.
The interference cited in this article appears to be on a much longer wavelength and is likely due to the larger electronics payloads on each satellite (flight computers, routers, "cloud servers", misc DoD payloads, etc). The cost to mitigate this may be quite expensive, in terms of time, cost and payload mass.
Fundamentally there is a tension between a scientific community that is concerned about interference and a business in which revenue may be correlated with keeping orbiting Ku transmitters powered up as often and as cheaply as possible. This is unfortunate as there is some interesting science that may be observed at these wavelengths.
minetest2048
10 months ago
They did that already: https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2024AAS...24317403D/abstra...
This article is not about their main transmitters, they're saying that they detected EM interference from their electronics: https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/full_html/2024/09/aa51856-...
What is surprising is that they claim that Starlink violates CISPR limits
s1artibartfast
10 months ago
That might not even be necessary because the satellites are transient phenomenon with predictable trajectories. This makes it more a matter of data cleaning to remove them.
Imagine someone walking through a log exposure photography shot. You can filter out the frames or pixels with some extra work.
itishappy
10 months ago
Nit: Lucky imaging requires multiple frames, not long exposures. In short, you need multiple frames to be able to reject any. Long exposure times are still important for astronomy because they improve the noise floor.
s1artibartfast
10 months ago
long exposure was intended to describe the photography analogy.
Im not an expert in digital radio astronomy, but my understanding is that data is generally sampled at a high rate.
itishappy
10 months ago
Shoot, you're totally right. I hadn't considered this is radio.
panick21_
10 months ago
They are already doing that for a radio telescope in the US. But not sure how you request that.
user
10 months ago