Washington emergency responders first to use SpaceX's Starlink internet in the field: 'It's amazing'

[sarchasm]

Source: CNBC

Washington’s state military, which includes its emergency response division, began using Starlink user terminals in early August to bring internet service to areas devastated by wildfires.

“I have spent the better part of four or five hours with some satellite equipment trying to get a good [connection]. So, to me, it’s amazing,” Washington state’s emergency telecommunications leader Richard Hall told CNBC.

Washington has used Starlink to get regions “zero day communications,” Hall said.

Read more: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/09/29/washington-emergency-responders-use-spacex-starlink-satellite-internet.html

[Blues Heron]

1. I still think it sucks the big one

Fuck musk and the 50,000 satellites he flew in on.

[NNadir]

2. Unfortunately this system is part of our criminal contempt...

...for future generations. Once this stuff transforms into an orbital junkyard, orbital space will become unusable for a very long period of time.

Musk is not a very decent human being. He is, in fact, a reckless cowboy who is Trumpian and Randian in his self inflation.

[truthisfreedom]

6. You should do your research before you condemn starlink.

You’re flat out wrong.

[NNadir]

8. I spend a huge part of my week in the primary scientific literature...

...as evidenced by my journal on this website.

It amuses me to no end when people with no such experience and no actual references support their rote assumptions announce I'm wrong.

It takes 0.11 seconds for Google scholar to produce 1,530 hits to scientific journals on the search terms "space debis" orbital satellites spacex.

I might be impressed with a citation from some fraction of these papers, but as it is I'll just assume the classic laziness and indifference that usually accompanies rote worship of that awful asshole Elon Musk.

History will not forgive this mindless, uninformed Musk worship nor should it.

[Jigsaw007]

11. Deorbiting

There are two methods of deorbiting Starlink satellites.

1.) The Starlink satellites are in a low earth orbit. That means that the earth's atmosphere will slow the satellites orbital speed down to the point where it will simply fall to the earth and burn/disintegrate upon reentry. If the Starlink satellites are not repositioned to a higher orbit, meaning nothing is done to change it's altitude, then all the Starlink satellites will fall to earth and be destroyed within 3 years.

2.) Each Starlink satellite has a really nifty propulsion system, (Ion Drive!), that can be used to position the satellite as well as forcibly deorbit the device. A forceful deorbit using the ion drive has been done twice in the past few months.

[link:https://everydayastronaut.com/starlink-10-falcon-9-block-5/#:~:text=Each%20Starlink%20satellite%20is%20equipped%20with%20the%20first,the%20satellite.%20What%20is%20the%20Starlink%20Satellite%20Constellation%3F|

"Each Starlink satellite is equipped with the first Hall-effect Krypton powered ion thruster. This thruster is used both for ensuring the correct orbital position, but is also used for orbit raising and orbit lowering. At the end of the satellite’s life, this thruster is used to deorbit the satellite."

[NNadir]

14. Thank you for the press release. However...

...it is just that, a press release filled with optimist horseshit that amounts to a marketing claim that this approach will actually be viable for thousands of satellites. Again, I invite the use of Google Scholar for some real science. One can learn for instance that the collision of just four satellites in two events, one in 2007 (Fengyun/ASat) and 2009 Cosmos/Iridium created 4500 of the 9000 cataloged low earth orbit debris objects not to mention thousands of projectiles traveling thousands of meters per second that are too small to track. At these velocities a small bolt can have energies comparable to a bundle of dynamite.

Now Musk is claiming his thousands of satellites will all magically avoid this existing debris and offers a press release to make us feel warm and fuzzy about the case where his magic satellites are not shattered in a microsecond. If just five or ten of his thousands of satellites collide in space every decade, low earth orbits will enter a point where every damn Rocket will risk a run creating away chain reaction involving many or most or all low earth orbital satellites.

From my perspective this nonsense, the press release, is beneath contempt.

[SkyDaddy7]

10. I agree!

Musk says stupid shit but he does some really cool & awesome stuff!

[Massacure]

9. Starlink satellites will only be able to maintain orbit for five years on average without fuel

SpaceX picked orbits that would quickly decay without fuel specifically because of criticism around orbital debris. Musk may deserve criticism for various reasons, but I don't believe orbit debris caused by Starlink is one of them.

[Jigsaw007]

12. reply

https://phys.org/news/2019-05-starlink-satellites-orbiting-altitude-space.html

"This lower altitude was selected to minimize the risk posed by space junk, but will also allow the company to send more satellites into orbit sooner. The lower insertion orbit will not only allow the Falcon 9 rockets that will be deploying the satellites to carry heavier payloads, it will also mean shorter transmissions times and that the first batch of satellites will fall back to Earth sooner."

[CoryTrevor]

3. Not to mention the severe impairment of astronomy research

https://www.lsst.org/content/lsst-statement-regarding-increased-deployment-satellite-constellations

[hunter]

4. A million years from now this civilization will be a curious layer of trash in the geologic record.

Quite a bit of our trash will be littering the solar system as well.

Aside from that, we will be gone.

I support universal internet service, especially for people living in rural areas. If we can connect a place to the electric grid, we can connect it with fiber optic communication cable as well.

But I also support wilderness. It's okay if wild places don't have cell phone or internet services. We already have satellite emergency services that cover the world. Anyone who sails the seas or ventures into the wilderness can purchase a personal locater beacon for about $300.

Personally, I want Starlink to fail spectacularly.

[Pluvious]

5. I'm skeptical human civilization will last 500 more years n/t

[truthisfreedom]

7. You must live somewhere that has good internet.

I live in a rural area where my dish internet, the only choice I have, is spotty at best. Running my business can be a nightmare. Research starlink before you condemn them. The satellites are designed to fall out of the sky every few years.

[hunter]

13. My parents and my wife's parents live in similar situations.

They are connected to power grids that were established as government subsidized rural electrification programs. There's no reason the same right-of-ways couldn't carry fiber optic internet as well. We've built roads and highways, we've built rural electric power and telephone systems, now it's time to build rural high speed internet systems.

My wife's parents live in a place where most of their neighbors suffer satellite internet if they have internet at all. My wife's parents got lucky when AT&T installed a cell phone tower line-of-sight from their home on a nearby mountain. They are able to connect with that. It's expensive, but better than satellite.

My parents live in a small, fairly compact rural community that has its own internet guru. It took some politics, but the community eventually got both high speed internet and cell phone service.

A rural community near where I live has free internet for all residents. This community was completely bad-ass in their negotiations with the cell phone and cable companies and demanded this in return for right-of-ways and towers.

High speed internet for nearly all, even in rural places, can be accomplished without space junk, air pollution, or interference to earth based astronomy.

Are you on the electric grid? A rural phone system? Maybe you can push for internet along those same right-of-ways.

I was recently surprised when 5G cell phone and internet service came to my neighborhood. Our neighborhood cell phone towers are installed atop the high voltage electric towers passing through our community. I can see the ugly things from my house.

wikipedia

Ground based internet should be the norm anywhere there are roads and power lines.