It’s hard to put a value on access to high speed internet, because it’s such a force multiplier for productivity, art, and culture.
Gigan@lemmy.world 11 months ago
I thought Starlink was really cool when I first heard about it. I know people that use it because it’s the best Internet available to them. But I’m not sure if the amount of space waste they are creating is worth it.
pennomi@lemmy.world 11 months ago
shortwavesurfer@monero.town 11 months ago
This stuff falls back into the atmosphere and burns up quite rapidly since it’s in extremely low orbit.
Gigan@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Even if 100% of the stuff burns up, it’s a lot of energy and materials that needs to be constantly replaced. Seems like a lot of maintenance to keep the array operating long-term.
teft@startrek.website 11 months ago
Also vaporizing metals being added to the upper atmosphere isn’t exactly great.
Gigan@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Isn’t great how? Like in a going to make global warming-worse way or going to give us cancer way?
shortwavesurfer@monero.town 11 months ago
You make a good point there for sure. The lower the orbit, the faster the return and burn up, but the lower the latency as well. That’s why usual satellite internet sucks so badly. Those satellites are in geostationary orbit and light takes 0.7 seconds to get there and back.
dinckelman@lemmy.world 11 months ago
This is what scares me the most. At a certain point, we’ll just have to go “whoops, our planet has no more resources to leech”, and we’ll be permanently stuck in stone age
ilovelemmy12345@lemmy.world 11 months ago
Data showing it’s happening within a day.