"No one thought of this"...

[SkyHiker]

Yea right... somewhat appalling IMHO.

https://spacenews.com/spacex-working-on ... astronomy/

Take especially a look at the discussion. The respondents compare land based astronomy with horse and buggy and argue that at this day and age telescopes belong in space. True of course except that currently it's extremely expensive and that space does not currently offer an alternative for asteroid hunting and direct observation of exoplanets - or for amateur astronomers like us but apparently that's not considered important. If those responses are representative of what the general public thinks, it looks like we'll just have to live with it.

[notFritzArgelander]

It's deplorable, the rampant scientific illiteracy.

[JayTee]

Shotwell admitted that nobody in the company anticipated the problem when the satellites were first designed.

“No one thought of this,” she said. “We didn’t think of it. The astronomy community didn’t think of it.”

This part I can't believe. When we first discussed this issue, from a post 6 to 9 weeks ago, this was the very first thing that was brought up by us. That's why I find this claim so hard to believe. This sounds much more like, okay you caught us so I guess we'll have to do something about it.

JT

[Lady Fraktor]

This discussion came up with the first launch, I remember reading a response about it that Musk wrote so not exactly surprising information unless you only look up from your phone once or twice a year.

[Lokifish]

It's deplorable, the rampant scientific illiteracy.

There sure is a ton of that in the comments. The willfully ignorant SpaceX fanbois doesn't help matters either.

[notFritzArgelander]

It's deplorable, the rampant scientific illiteracy.

There sure is a ton of that in the comments. The willfully ignorant SpaceX fanbois doesn't help matters either.

Yes, the "no one thought of this" garbage is a lie. Of course lying has become fashionable as a means of dodging responsibility.

[helicon]

There should be much more of an outcry. I described what was happening to some science-minded friends a couple of evenings ago when I was out for dinner and they were horrified.

[yobbo89]

I feel like half the people in that comments section are only there to just annoy people and don't care if they get good cheap global internet even though they rave on about it.. i'm sure their internet at home is substantial .. bunch of ignorant baboons in my opinion.

I'm sure they are all that rude neighbor that shines the bright security light into your yard every night.

[depratnt]

I call BS. I've had many discussions as well as seen many discussionS BEFORE STARLINK LAUNCHED that this may be an issue. I agree with what was said above. "Okay you caught us"

[Lokifish]

I'm thinking I might use my ARA project on this to capture video showing where I ident/track detectable Starlink sats in real time, specifically the ones that have already reached altitude. Even try to see how far down the "food chain" I can go with the gear and still detect them.

edit
And of course make all the video public.

[SkyHiker]

Astronomers deserve a lot of blame for letting this happen. It was well known that SpaceX and several other companies, and several other countries were going to launch tens of thousands of satellites, two years ago. They should have gone to court back then.

[Lokifish]

While I agree, it's in conflict with the astronomy pollution mantra of "it's not your place, what right do you have, suck it up or go somewhere else". So it's no wonder why there was no serious concerted effort to address this. If anything, the community helped cause the problem by rolling over for decades. Now it's paying for it, with interest.

[Don Alvarez]

“We want to make sure we do the right thing to make sure little kids can look through their telescope”

Anyone else interpret that as highly derogatory? As if this issue only impacts little kids and not the ability to do real science?

[helicon]

It's partly emblematic of the Silicon Valley ethos. "I am going to do something crazy to shake things up and see if you can stop me." Unfortunately there is collateral damage in the wake of innovation, e.g., newspapers and magazines went out of business, taxi drivers lost business, etc., etc.