That’s definitely good news, if we can get anything Elon out of our lives, it’s always a plus.
I would support a petition for the UN to maintain control of that market. 1 it would give the UN an more active role and give it a means of funding itself 2 it would prevent multiple companies from rushing to install their cluster of sats keeping the sky as free of debris as possible
Just initial idea…
Would have been nice,but sadly we see how the US is handling the UN right now.
At least the EU has decided to get one unified network with Iris2 now. That is at least a step in the right direction.
More competition? LETS GO!
How bad is it for low earth orbit to have multiple companies fighting over the market?
One field it impacts is radio astronomy. We can already see Musk’s satellites mess with it (unintentionally) and it’s probably only going to get worse from here.
Low earth orbit is very big. It’s not bad.
Depends on a lot of factors. Due to uncontrollable factors like small untrackable debris, more satellites is always more dangerous, but that’s still an extremely small problem. If all the Starlink-style companies cooperate properly and adopt high tech solutions for collision avoidance, it’ll probably be fine - space is really, really big. Additionally, the extremely low orbits are a great mitigating factor for potential parts failures; even if a satellite outright dies, losing its telemetry and maneuvering capability, it’ll be gone pretty quick.
Honestly, more than anything, I’d be concerned about the recent science showing that satellites burning up on reentry could be very significantly more damaging to our atmosphere and the ozone layer than previously thought.
Fuck the stars. Like they do anything for profits.
We need the UN to have crown corporations
Damn that sounds impressive. Hopefully they can get this service deployed before the others do and they can start to claim some more market share
I wonder if it wouldn’t be cheaper and more practical to just install antennas all over…
Except Starlink already has direct to cell technology, with satellites already in orbit, and limited coverage already available. I don’t know if they’re using 5g, but this tech is available to the public already.
The article states that Starlink requires special equipment to access the satellites, and that’s just not true.
