Pollution To A New High

[RANT]
A new form of pollution is about to start.

Imagine that you backpacked for tens of miles into the wilderness to get away from civilization, you pitch your tent next to a lake and there is not another human around for miles. After dinner you lay by the shore of the lake to watch the stars… and then civilization hits you in the head with a 2 by 4.

When you look up you see hundred of thousands of tiny dots moving across the sky, an alien invasion?

No, just mega corporations vying your money.

You all have probably have heard of Elon Musk’s Starlink that is launching 30,000 to 40,000 satellites?

Callers across U.S. report mysterious lights across night sky
By Associated Press Nationwide
May. 08, 2021


PHILADELPHIA — A string of lights that lobbed across the night sky in parts of the U.S. on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday had some people wondering whether a fleet of UFOs was coming, but it had others — mostly amateur stargazers and professional astronomers — lamenting the industrialization of space.

The train of lights was actually a series of relatively low-flying satellites launched by Elon Musk's SpaceX as part of its Starlink internet service earlier this week. Callers swamped TV stations from Texas to Wisconsin reporting the lights and musing about UFOs.

An email to a spokesman for SpaceX was not returned Saturday, but astronomy experts said the number of lights in quick succession and their distance from Earth made them easily identifiable as Starlink satellites for those who are used to seeing them.

“The way you can tell they are Starlink satellites is they are like a string of pearls, these lights travelling in the same basic orbit, one right after the other," said Dr. Richard Fienberg, press officer for the American Astronomical Society.

Fienberg said the satellites that are being launched in large groups called constellations string together when they orbit, especially right after launching. The strings get smaller as time goes on.

But he is not the only billionaire with dreams of mega wealth in the sky,

Elon Musk’s Starlink vs. Its Competitors: A Race for Broader Internet
Starlink started offering its internet system for the beta testers. But how are its competitors trying to achieve success?
Medium
By CP Ventures
February 9, 2021


We all have heard it. Elon Musk is preparing to broaden the internet connectivity using a “mesh” of satellites traveling on the low Earth orbit. He has been recently sending many satellites to space to achieve this as quickly as possible. They recently started offering beta testers a Starlink service terminal that includes an antenna and router for $499 and $99 a month internet service accessible from anywhere.

But many other companies are trying to achieve the same goal of increasing internet connectivity. They all somewhat differ from Starlink in how they launch satellites and satellite technologies but try to achieve a similar end goal.
[…]
Companies Targeting Low Earth Orbit
In this section, we will take a look at companies focusing on developing satellites for low Earth orbit (LEO). LEO is defined as an Earth-centric orbit with an altitude of fewer than 1200 miles.

Some of the other companies according to the Medium article are…

• Amazon Project Kuiper
• OneWeb
• Telesat
• European Union Consortium Led By Airbus
• Hongyun, Hongyan, and Galaxy Space
• Kepler Communications

Now lets suppose that only half of them actually do launch satellites, so 3 times 35,000 satellites, that is 105,000 satellites and add Starlink 35,000 satellites that is a total of 140,000 satellites!

Why?

Why create a new form of pollution?

It is pollution you know, it is light pollution, it is space pollution and it will be a nightmare for astronomers, it will be a nightmare for manned spaces flights trying to weave their way around all those satellites.

Why? Just so billionaires and mega corporations can line their pockets with more money.

Do we really need the internet that bad that we create a whole new form of pollution? The billions that it will cost to launch the satellites and keep replacing them (Because Newton is still right, what goes up must come down. In Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites don’t stay up, the earth atmosphere slows them down until they can’t stay in orbit and crash back to earth) could be used to wire up isolated villages instead.

From now on no matter how far out in the wilderness you go when you look up at the stars you will see instead a hundred thousand satellites.
[/RANT]