A short video for those of you who may want to know more about the satellites orbiting our planet. I believe we should be demanding transparency from authorities and a night sky treaty. We are being attacked from every angle. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tOFFF0TnvwE
Imagine if thousands of unmarked vehicles were driving through your neighbourhood each day, and you had no idea who’s driving them, what’s in them, or where they were going
Um that’s exactly the case for cars, I’m not sure if this analogy really works.
Also, if you’re wondering why they don’t bang into each other, well the animation really exaggerates the size of them. It’s nowhere near that crowded. There is way more space up there in orbit than there is on earth. Imagine if we had 4x the land area and only 11,000 cars, it would be very sparse. The risk isn’t the current satellites it’s the huge increase in launches that’s forecast to rise exponentially.
The video also seems to conclude that it’s difficult to detect the satellites, but we need to for national security, but also it interferes in astronomy, and there is research to make them harder to detect. I feel dumb as I don’t really understand what the point is the video is making? That we should make them harder to detect or get better at detecting them? Both?
I agree with you about unmarked vehicles analogy, I thought the same as you.
I thought improving the satellites ‘transparency’ was so that scientists could more easily see what’s happening beyond them. But, yeh, the video could certainly be clearer.
With what you say about satellite launches growing exponentially in the future, we need to be better informed so we can demand from our governments duty of care (am I being naive? probably). Do you know if there is any citizen organisation that looks into this? Please let us know if you do.
I’m not aware of any, no.
I’m a bit confused about the call to action on the video, because they spend a chunk of the video talking about the important of identifying the satellite and then another chunk talking about making them harder to detect. I’m confused as to what the author wants us to think or do based on the information given.
Perhaps you can ask the author if you’re interested.
I’ve found an organisation that might interest you which covers NZ: https://australasiandarkskyalliance.org/
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Their presence does affect our environment. See this recent article: https://theconversation.com/too-many-satellites-earths-orbit-is-on-track-for-a-catastrophe-but-we-can-stop-it-275430
If they become a problem you just tow it outside the environment, easy fix.
Yup, we just need a big space ute with a big tow bar, right?
A planet shrouded in a swirling cloud of shrapnel. A prison of garbage.
I feel like it wasn’t that long ago I had to refer to satellite tracking websites to have any hope of catching one pass overhead, now I can look up at any point and see 3-4 starlink sats at once.
Well, when the aliens come across the carcass of a planet we leave behind, maybe a few of these will still be in orbit and actually functional enough to show them what we did to ourselves. They’ll be glad they missed us.
