SpaceX Starlink Satellites Have to Dodge Objects in Orbit Nearly 140 Times Every Day

fun fact: fiber optic wire doesn't have to dodge anything because it's buried in the ground

Fun fact: fiber optic cables don't need customers either because telecos took a shit ton of money in government subsidies to build them but they didn't bother finishing the job.
- Unlike Elon Musk, who has never recieved government subsidies or delivered faulty products
Additional fun fact: Radio towers anchored to ground are also dodge obligation free and are able cover the supplementary mobile and wireless communications needs to complement the wired connections for cases of not being able use wires.
😀
- Are they truly able though? I'll readily admit I'm not very knowledgeable on this, but radio towers have a limited range, right? Satellites have the ability to provide internet and communications to truly remote areas where it may be logistically challenging or impractical to build radio towers.
- Aircraft have to dodge them.
- Fun fact, radio towers don't work for shit. I've had 4 cellular routers for the past 5 years, and had a total of maybe 24 hours where they offered better service than Starlink due to weather.
In northern Alaska last month, a buried undersea cable was cut by ice, causing a major internet outage for a number of communities. An exceptional situation, to be sure, but it sprang to my mind immediately. No infrastructure is without hazards.
https://alaskapublic.org/2023/06/12/cut-cable-causes-weeks-long-north-slope-northwest-alaska-internet-and-cellphone-outages/
Unfortunately a fiber optic wire has to dodge lawsuits. Anything you send to space won't be destroyed or repossessed because it threatens someone's Monopoly.
I had to pay my ISP $25k to run fiber to my house :(
But now I'm the only person in the area with gigabit internet while everyone else has 1mbps DSL?
Yeah, but it's really hard to pull behind the boat. And my buddies say the installer refuses to drive through the combat zone.
Except backhoes.
I remember the story about one old lady with a shovel cutting off a part of European country (was it Romania?) from the internet. In that case if fiber optic wire could doge, it would save the day for a lot of people*
*I'm not sure if the story is true and if I remember it correctly.

Complaining about the number of objects in orbit as you persist in putting thousands of additional objects in orbit seems hypocritical

I just hate seeing these stupid things polluting the night sky. Other than Elon Musk, who the fuck wants to see this junk flying around when you look up at the stars?

While I see your point, some people don’t have any other option than this and it is a game changer for rural areas. The only other option would be to run the infrastructure to them and that’s not gonna happen anytime soon unfortunately.
- "We have failed as a society to help small communities. Instead of seeing this an choosing to be better, it's OK to let billionaires fuck up space."
  Seriously. Small towns and rural communities could have high speed network access already if they stopped voting for people that refuse to fund infrastructure spending and that bend over backwards to prevent community-based initiatives to create high speed networks! Elon's not helping them, he's exploiting the fact that they've backed people who actively keep them in the stone ages.
- As well it’s important to develop this technology on our planet for when we become an interplanetary species. Being able to quickly surround a habitable planet with infrastructure that can beam network, position, even power directly down to the surface without interference is hyper critical. EMS will also love this for when natural disasters strike and communication via ground based systems is knocked out. This is ultimately the direction we will be heading in for future points, but making satellites that encompass multiple things. However it’s important that any company, or even government, operating in space should have to pay into some sort of UN fund for cleaning space junk as it is becoming a problem and it’s so easy for companies to launch stuff in space and avoid any consequences when it turns to junk.
- It could if the will was there. We’re able to run water & electricity - but we can’t figure out how to run a strand of glass or 1 new piece of copper? It’s called greed, laziness, ineptitude & creative companies & their lawyers which took tax payer money without delivering the services they promised year over year.
- The only other option would be to run the infrastructure to them and that’s not gonna happen anytime soon unfortunately
  Not because it can't happen though, but because it isn't profitable or beneficial to the right people.
  I'm no expert, but I would think running cables (or using existing ones which undoubtedly exist) or whatever other terrestrial solution, would be infinitely easier and cheaper (and less destructive) than networking the entire sky with satellites.
  Seems like yet another instance where capitalism has created a problem (not connecting remote places despite being able to because it doesn't make them enough money) only so it can sell us convoluted, overcomplicated and overpriced "solutions" that do make them money (as well as other forms of power and control). E: alternatively (more like and and/or), they needed the military application and used the side effects of it benefiting civilian as a front and a justification. And it's working, people are defending it without question.
- The only other option would be to run the infrastructure to them and that’s not gonna happen anytime soon unfortunately.
  So we should cause a global sky pollution problem to solve local political problem. How about... No. We don't pollute global shared good and instead USA just has to pull it by it's boots straps and solve it's political administration problems.
  Africa, North Europe and so on doesn't have problem with setting up cell networks even for rural areas. Point to point microwave links have been invented to even avoid having to run ground fibre to each cell tower. We have the tech. Thus it isn't a absolutely necessary problem. It is local political problem.
  Fix it.... or well suffer lack of internet. USA doesn't get to ignore the external global costs just to make things politically more convenient locally.
- Yeah, before Starlink I was paying $150/month for 15 Mbps down, usually getting half of that or less, and it was transmitted via radio so it always stopped working when it rained. It was barely usable, but too important to stop paying for.
  Now I pay a little less and get 100-150 Mbps down, and the rain usually doesn't affect it. Latency is better too.
  And I'm just 20 minutes from a fairly large city in the US. There are a lot of areas with less service than I had.
  Musk can eat shit, and I hate giving him money, but Starlink has made a really big difference.
- I get what you're saying but... it's just so hard to accept that we're going with satellites rather than running a fiber optic cable over to your house.
- So we're defiling the night sky to... help bored Republicans get on Facebook, Twitter, and 4chan?
  Well now I'm really sold on the idea!
The people who require network access in under served, rural areas?

I think temporarily Starlink should be reducing their constellation ambitions, spread out the dishes and reduce throughput. The accessibility Starlink offers is a 11/10 win for the world. But the bandwidth and size should come after we have better mitigation for Kessler Syndrome and inference with observing the universe.

Don't worry, it'll only be 20 years after the chain reaction accident that all these satellites will burn up in orbit. Surely 20 years of no low earth orbit satellites will be fine, right?
I personally consider 100mbit to be the minimum internet people should have. And everyone should have at least that.
I got my parents Starlink because they live a few miles outside the capitol of Texas and have zero unlimited cellular options and no terrestrial options. They get about 120mb/sec and I would hate for that number to go down. It's over 110 dollars a month versus Gigabit bidirectional for Google fiber that I have just 6 miles from them that is only 45 a month.
- 100megabit is not the minimum, that's about what I'm on and have the fastest internet out of anyone I know, downloading games in a couple hours and stuff.
  People can absolutely live with +16megabits, I did at my parents house for years. 100 would be nice, but in no way necessary.
- I only have 22mbit where I live and no available fiber. There's no faster service either. We get by with it, but in a full household, it can certainly cause lots of buffering and bandwidth restrictions. When we worked from home, it could be a problem on occasions. I live in a decently sized community in the southeastern US. There's no excuse for this.

It's called being a satellite

The only reason for starlink to exist is because telcos were allowed to ignore building out infrastructure to serve more areas. I don't know if incentives were ever provided to get them the capital to be willing to build out the infrastructure in less populates/rural areas.

Realizing that we have turned earth orbit into a garbage pile simply because we refused to step up and do right by our citizens instead of maximizing capitalism certainly stings.

I mean, most satellites correct their course and dodge stuff every once in a while. There’s just a lot of starlink ones, so you get more dodges. But it’s kinda inevitable.

Would be way worse if they didn’t dodge anything.

The problem is he eventually wants 42,000 of them in orbit.
- Instant Kessler syndrome!
- Bezos has a plan to do the same, but I think his calls for 100,000. Those two will be the destruction of this planet with their stupid one-upmanship.
- While I think Musk is an idiot, Starlink before I had fiber ran to me for some ungodly reason was a godsend. Also, space is big. 42000 satellites is still super insignificant in spaceborne objects over the planet. Also their design is so they burn up relatively quickly, and do not hang out in orbit for long, iirc only a couple years and constantly need to burn to maintain altitude. Sure they look like shit in the sky, but having the network like this is great for rural areas where there is no cell phone or internet service. But, the whole thing isn't very sustainable
- The fucking moron just want big number, consequences be damn.

1)Aim thruster retrograde 2)fire! 3)Enjoy starlink meteor shower!

is anyone even using that starlink internet? ive seen prices go from 100$/mo which is a lot, but maybe not for sattelite net idk... Is there anything else he gets from sattelites or just internet?

People in rural areas use it.
I use it. I live in the middle of nowhere and it has been a total game changer. I now want for nothing.
I use it. My option before was $240/mo for microwave internet. Starlink is both faster and significantly cheaper for me. It's just internet though, same as my other options.
I use it, it's my only serious option where I live and works surprisingly well. as for my other options - the literal garbage tier DSL is unusable, the line-of-sight wireless providers would require removal of a bunch of trees and likely still wouldn't work well, and 1 bar of cellular is a joke.
My options are $65 a month for 10Mb download / 768 kbit upload and 120ms ping to gaming servers, and about 1 in 10 packet loss. Or.. $120 a month for starlink which gives me 100-200 MB download and 50-100 MB upload and 40-60ms ping to gaming servers and about 1 in 100 packet loss.
I live in a van and I use Starlink daily when I'm somewhere without cell service.
They just started testing it when I left a previous job. Having fast, reliable Internet access would be a game-changer for remote temporary/mobile sites. And when I say remote, I mean remote.

Why couldn't a piece of space detritus hit Elon Musk? 😜