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  • Prof. Sam Lawlersundogplanets@mastodon.social
    Apr 27, 2026, 4:03 PM

    Some questions that keep coming up:
    There are gaps in the lines because this is a bunch of shorter exposures over the course of 10 minutes added together

    Kessler Syndrome is extremely bad for everybody, don't hope for it (though on my grumpier days I can definitely understand that perspective)

    The many parallel lines come from the orbits that have been chosen by megaconstellation operators, mostly Starlink. You can see that somewhat in various satellite visualizers like satellitetracker3d.com/

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  • jesterchen42jesterchen@social.tchncs.de
    Apr 27, 2026, 2:07 PM

    @sundogplanets Well... one brightside of the eternal and eviscerating chaos that Kessler will put us into: if the AI data centers crash and burn due to Kessler, the hype will finally come to a screeching halt.

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  • Mattmdc@mstdn.ca
    Apr 27, 2026, 2:11 PM

    @sundogplanets

    I've been seeing more posts trying to downplay Kessler Syndrome lately. Hard to tell how much of that is coming from SpaceX/Musk fans or corporate PR bots

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  • wraptilewraptile@fosstodon.org
    Apr 27, 2026, 2:16 PM

    @sundogplanets and for what?

    I did some napkin math some time ago: all these satellites cost around 10-15B usd to deploy. This would be equivalent of 0.5 - 1 million cell towers at 10-20k usd (yeah that cheap).
    There are currently 7 million cell towers worldwide most of which are old and under-performing. With 1 million NEW cell towers with economies of scale we could have probably covered the same actual reach with better latency, access and affordability.

    Low orbit internet is a joke.

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  • BrokarBrokar@mastodon.social
    Apr 27, 2026, 2:54 PM

    @sundogplanets @wraptile

    Well, you can also spy with the satellites. Can't do that with a cell tower (not that effective) and destroying one satellite does nothing to the system.

    I really wish China would launch their own 10.000 satellites and program them on a collision course with the Starlink ones, forcing all of them to enter the atmosphere and burn out.

    I would personally thank Xi for making astronomy possible again 😉

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  • MacCruiskeenmaccruiskeen@social.linux.pizza
    Apr 27, 2026, 3:47 PM

    @Brokar @sundogplanets @wraptile If they were just going to do kinetic kill vehicles, they wouldn't need nearly that many to really screw things up. The problem of course is that whoever did it would be screwing up their own assets at the same time.

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  • wraptilewraptile@fosstodon.org
    Apr 27, 2026, 3:51 PM

    @maccruiskeen @Brokar @sundogplanets you mean using satellites as weapons? that seems a bit unlikely but clearly Ukraine has shown how powerful low-orbit internet is as utility for weapons so I meant more of that regard. For that, you do need a lot of them for good coverage and they have limited lifespan + need a large backup overhead.

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  • BrokarBrokar@mastodon.social
    Apr 27, 2026, 3:51 PM

    @maccruiskeen @sundogplanets @wraptile

    I wouldn't want just kinetic stuff because the chance of the satellites breaking up and creating more debris would be too great. I'd rather go for "safe disposal" 😉 Throw a net over them and pull them down. Like you catch drones.

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  • C.Suthorn :prn:Life_is@no-pony.farm
    Apr 27, 2026, 3:36 PM
    @sundogplanets@mastodon.social @wraptile@fosstodon.org But many of this 7 million towers are in mega cities, few are in the country side, even less in the global south and non near my secret hidden antarctic super villain head quarter. You would have to put this additional million towers in places that until now have no mobil phone or internet, not replace old towers in Berlin, Prague, Oslo, Helsinki, Aberdeen, Monaco, kiel, flensburg, bremen, oldenburg, celle, uelzen, magdeburg, eberswalde, heringsdorf, stuttgart, trier, ulm, rostock, schwerin, aachen, bonn, düsseldorf, kampen, koblenz, konstanz, mainz, hagen, hanau, kaiserslautern, duisburg, dortmund, bielefeld, stendal, osnabrück, essen, hamm, fulda, memmingen, nürnberg ingolstadt,...,
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  • John Appeljappel@wandering.shop
    Apr 27, 2026, 2:16 PM

    @sundogplanets Offered in the spirit of encouragement: even the most cursory look at the financial goings-on in the AI space indicate that it's going to come crashing down, because the math simply doesn't work. And that collapse is almost certainly going to happen before anyone gets close to launching datacenters. If you get a chance Ed Zitron has a refreshingly frank assessment of the financial side of things.

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  • Tofu GolemTofu_Golem@kolektiva.social
    Apr 27, 2026, 2:24 PM

    @sundogplanets
    Data centers in orbit?

    Do they not have physicists at that company?

    How would you cool them? There's no atmosphere or ocean to transfer the heat to. You would be limited to radiation-based cooling with obnoxiously-large panels.

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  • Dave Mcguigsy
    Apr 27, 2026, 3:48 PM

    @Tofu_Golem @sundogplanets cooling is a problem. But not as big a deal as some make out. Scott Manley did a good video on the physics. For each square unit of solar panel, you need roughly half as much again in radiators if you want to keep silicon electronics at a reasonable temperature.

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  • Dave Mcguigsy
    Apr 28, 2026, 4:58 AM

    @Tofu_Golem @sundogplanets I think the current Starlinks consume a sustained 22kW! These server sats would be a few times bigger. But it's not impossible. The engineering can be done.

    I hate the idea. I still think it'll fail in many other ways. But the engineering has largely been proven already.

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  • G 🇮🇹ranx@mastodon.social
    Apr 27, 2026, 2:24 PM

    @sundogplanets since Kessler Syndrome seems inevitabile, the sooner the better? Positive effects: a) Starlink and probably all other companies, who's business is abusing LEO, go bankrupt; b) the FCC will have decades to think about how stupid they were; c) all those people subscribing to satellite internet because it's cool will learn what's the meaning of DO NOT FEED THE BEAST just for a little extra bandwidth. By the way, this morning I spotted the first Starlink antenna in town ;(

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  • Scale TheorySCALETHEORY@mastodon.social
    Apr 27, 2026, 2:24 PM

    @sundogplanets

    Kessler Syndrome

    "NASA space debris expert Don Kessler observed that, once past a certain critical mass, the total amount of space debris will keep on increasing."

    Sounds as if it's a chemical reaction creating matter not free will of idiots.

    BLACK HOLE
    Kessler Syndrome: "It describes a situation in which the density of objects in low Earth orbit (LEO) becomes so high due to space pollution that collisions between these objects..." "NASA space debris expert Don Kessler observed that, once past a certain critical mass, the total amount of space debris will keep on increasing." Sounds as if its a chemical reaction creating matter not free will of idiots.
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  • Lalawiesodennblos@hessen.social
    Apr 27, 2026, 2:47 PM

    @sundogplanets the "data centers in orbit" is the part that is not happening. Maybe the idea was advertised to justify spaceX investment in xAI and keep the circular money flows busy.

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  • Luna Lacteajackemled@furry.engineer
    Apr 27, 2026, 3:02 PM

    @sundogplanets The satellites seem to be dark at some parts of their trails. Are they spinning‽ So their antennas just aren't aimed at Earth half of the time‽ I thought they couldn't be any stupider.

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  • Dave Mcguigsy
    Apr 27, 2026, 3:51 PM

    @jackemled @sundogplanets I'm not sure. I think the brightness is when their solar panels are in sunlight when the ground below is in darkness. And they orbit pretty low. So I think the trails are just because it was after dusk and/or before dawn? But sure.

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  • Dave Mcguigsy
    Apr 27, 2026, 4:00 PM

    @jackemled @sundogplanets maybe it's a composite of lots of photos and there's a small gap between? They have to be very stable to work.

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  • Luna Lacteajackemled@furry.engineer
    Apr 27, 2026, 4:10 PM

    @guigsy @sundogplanets Why not do a long exposure instead? Aren't composite photos usually done to look at a specific object & using a special tripod to automatically move the camera & telescope to always point at it?

    Spinning the satellites would be a good way to make sure solar panels are regularly exposed to light if they're just mounted to the outside & not retractable, but then you can't aim the antenna. That's only good for those microsatellites people host BBSs on & communicate with using special equipment at very specific times.

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  • Dave Mcguigsy
    Apr 27, 2026, 5:22 PM

    @jackemled @sundogplanets Starlinks have propulsion. I'm pretty confident they are fully stabilised. They are actively able to avoid colliding (provided there aren't multiple fails). And if they were spinning, they'd need even bigger solar. And they operate at many kilowatts continuously. They aren't microsatellite scale.

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  • Michael Buschmichael_w_busch@mastodon.online
    Apr 27, 2026, 5:54 PM

    @jackemled @guigsy

    As @sundogplanets wrote, the gaps in the satellite trails are just from when the camera stopped taking data to read out between each of the exposures used to make the image.

    This is done because if exposed for too long; the brightest things in an image saturate the detector in the camera.

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  • Humphrey Archerscrewturn@mastodon.social
    Apr 27, 2026, 3:09 PM

    @sundogplanets
    If it weren't for the various categories of pollution and risk here, I would be 100% behind Sam and others blowing investor's fortunes on silly parlor games.

    Like sure, go put a data center in orbit where a service call to replace a pump will cost a million bucks, and sure, expose your computers to radiation, and please, by all means find out the hard way that space is cold, but has very low specific heat capacity. Be my guest, play stupid games.

    But sadly, the pollution costs

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  • RycochetRycochet@furs.social
    Apr 27, 2026, 3:24 PM

    @sundogplanets When the first Starlink says went up, Elon stans swore he would use his wealth to fund space telescopes so ground based astronomy wouldn't even be necessary, astronomers would have free access to science funded by his philanthropic largesse... Instead massive cuts to science, attacks on all regulation, higher education, spotty kids using chat GPT to decide what science is and isn't 'woke' and NASA destined to become a SpaceX subsidiary.

    I cannot wait to see all the 'dooming' over atmospheric aluminium and the ozone layer coming true just to add another layer of awful to things. Unlike CFCs, he'll probably block any action being taken and promise ozone replenishment drones at some unspecified point in the future, to be released alongside darker satellites and Full Self Driving.

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  • #Digital ⚓️ #Vagabond 🦈beet_keeper@digipres.club
    Apr 27, 2026, 3:50 PM

    @sundogplanets I absolutely believe that SpaceX should be held accountable and must deliver on their promises. As for long-exposure shots like this, is it demonstrable of a material impact on science? Or just on photography?

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  • Leelooleeloo@c.im
    Apr 27, 2026, 4:17 PM

    @sundogplanets
    It will take hard proof for them to understand.

    And if the choice is between Kessler Syndrome and North Sahara being the new name for Lapland, I think I prefer Kessler Syndrome.

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  • Mike Torrmacronencer@mastodon.scot
    Apr 27, 2026, 7:06 PM

    @sundogplanets Horrific. 😔

    Starlink and all the other nutjob beauty-polluting projects should be shut down.

    (Edited for Freudian slip...)

    Still of Ferris Bueller's sister Jeannie in the police station. The caption reads: "If you mention Ukraine, you lose a testicle."
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  • Mike Torrmacronencer@mastodon.scot
    Apr 27, 2026, 7:58 PM

    @wallabra It's a moment in the movie and I'm paraphrasing the dialogue ("You say Ferris Bueller, you lose a testicle") to make a point that no matter what good things Starlink might do, it's still a bad idea in general. I was getting tired of people telling me that Starlink is awesome just because it's helping Ukraine. Not sure people still use that argument, but it was very popular a couple of years ago.

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  • wallabra 🇧🇷wallabra@bark.lgbt
    Apr 27, 2026, 8:18 PM

    @macronencer Ohh, right, yeah, that argument. I had forgotten about it.

    Yeah, it's bollocks. Ukraine still has Internet infrastructure. It's not as hard to destroy internet connectivity in a war precisely because of the distributive nature of routable networks.

    In other words, Starlink is completely unnecessary. Ukraine's gonna be fine... at least internet wise.

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  • Eleanor Saittadymaxion@infosec.exchange
    Apr 30, 2026, 10:28 AM

    @wallabra
    @macronencer While I also don't think it justifies Starlink, no, there is currently no replacement for Starlink in the Ukrainian context. At the trench lines, there is no infrastructure of any kind left. It's all rubble. Also, getting realtime video uplink from a drone in the middle of the black sea or in the middle of Moscow is not possible for them by any non-satellite means. In theory the front line connections could be partially replaced by much much more heavily deployed terrestrial data radios, but they're by default easier to both jam and home in on with RF-seeking drones, simply due to the angle of intended emissions.

    The internet is somewhat resilient, yes. However, its resilience is highly overestimated by folks who don't work on carrier networks. The whole thing is held together with very expensive ducktape and bailing wire and constant efforts by thousands of people. Fiber breaks are a constant problem. The only intact fiber at the Ukrainian front is attached to FPV drones.

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  • Mike Torrmacronencer@mastodon.scot
    Apr 30, 2026, 11:42 AM

    @dymaxion @wallabra It saddens me to hear that news. It must be tough for people simply trying to live there as well as those actively fighting the invaders :(

    Thank you for the info.

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  • wallabra 🇧🇷wallabra@bark.lgbt
    Apr 30, 2026, 1:08 PM

    @dymaxion @macronencer I mean, all technology is held together by duct tape, yeah. Such is the nature of squeezing margin out of capital. That doesn't mean deploying a hecto-mesh of satellites is the approach to go with for resilient remote miltary operations. I mean, think about it this way: did Iran need Starlink to strike Dubai with drones?

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  • Eleanor Saittadymaxion@infosec.exchange
    Apr 30, 2026, 11:03 PM

    @wallabra
    @macronencer Iran is mostly shooting at stuff that doesn't move and doing without manual terminal-phase guidance. Again, I'm not saying that it's justified. That said, making the argument to governments that capability is not worth the risk and impact on a way that will be heard requires acknowledging the use cases where there is no direct replacement and the infrastructural dependencies that attempts to replace it imply. The EU and China are both working toward their own constellations, multiplying the problem, because having a sovereign LEO data capability is seen as a critical defense capability.

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  • Brian Gordonelasticsoul@mastodon.social
    Apr 30, 2026, 3:51 PM

    @sundogplanets

    I certainly have thought that a good dose of Kessler Syndrome would put the tech bros and unregulated capitalism in their place, but apparently KS could mean no more space flights...for hundreds of years. Prof, is there more, and worse?

    "Kessler Syndrome is extremely bad for everybody, don't hope for it (though on my grumpier days I can definitely understand that perspective)"

    Future generations are not going to respect their ancestors, and I don't blame 'em

    #kesslersyndrome

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