Comment on Starlink loses out on $886 million in rural broadband subsidies
Spedwell@lemmy.world 9 months agoI’ll just add that “designed to be burned up” is the correct approach to these types of satellite constellations. SpaceX has that aspect correct, at least.
Agree with everything else. Musk is a batshit egomaniac, and letting him dictate use of large infrastructure is careless. Government subsidies should entail a certain public influence over the operation of the system.
Squizzy@lemmy.world 9 months ago
I just don’t think we need satellites clogging up the sky for something we can accomplish if we wanted to. Fiber is cheap.
Starlink could be deployed in emergencies just fine.
SupraMario@lemmy.world 9 months ago
Clogging up…the sky…you do realize the size of space right? And the size of on of these SATs right?.. it’s like putting 800 washing machines in AZ and then telling people az is clogged with washing machines…do you randomly run into people’s houses driving through your neighborhood?
Romanmir@lemmy.today 9 months ago
nasa.gov/…/what-is-orbital-debris-grades-5-8/
This is what people are referring to when they talk about junk in orbit.
JohnDClay@sh.itjust.works 9 months ago
Starlink doesn’t produce any debris, only the satellites. Now they keep the tie rods attached so they don’t float off. The reason the picture looks so bad is because each piece of debris in this picture is represented as miles and miles across.
Space junk
SnipingNinja@slrpnk.net 9 months ago
Both of you are right. Space junk is an issue (Kessler syndrome), but that’s for orbits which won’t degrade by themselves, starlink satellites are supposed to be low enough that at time of crash they should mostly crash towards the earth and burn in the atmosphere.