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SpaceX Satellites' Effect on Night Sky Can't be Eliminated, Astronomers Say

posted by martyb on Saturday August 29 2020, @02:04PM   
from the new-normal dept.

Freeman writes:

SpaceX satellites' effect on night sky can't be eliminated, astronomers say:

Broadband satellites being launched by SpaceX and other companies will inevitably have a negative impact on astronomers' ability to observe the night sky, according to a new report by astronomers. There are no mitigation strategies that can completely eliminate the satellites' impact on astronomical observations—other than not launching satellites at all—but the report includes recommendations for how satellite operators can minimize disruption and how observatories can adjust to the changes.

The report released this week is titled, "Impact of Satellite Constellations on Optical Astronomy and Recommendations Toward Mitigations."

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Original Submission

• Re:Make it Right Re:Make it Right (Score: 3, Interesting) by sgleysti on Sunday August 30 2020, @03:09AM (1 child)

  by sgleysti (56) on Sunday August 30 2020, @03:09AM (#1044056)

  Unfortunately, a great example of the MIC in action. How many James Webb telescopes could they have launched for the price of this one?

  I find all the cost overruns and delays unsurprising given the incredible technical complexity involved.

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  Starting Score:	1		point
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• Re:Make it Right (Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday August 30 2020, @04:46AM

  by khallow (3766) on Sunday August 30 2020, @04:46AM (#1044091) Journal

  The problem isn't that there's cost overruns and delays. It's the size of those cost overruns, and the length of those delays. NASA has gotten away with a lot of shenanigans in space science because nobody else does it and thus, there's nothing to compare. When there is, such as orbital launch vehicles, NASA demonstrates vast inefficiency, considerable sloth, and elevated risk compared to the other options. For example, for the money spent on the Space Launch System, NASA's latest attempt at a Saturn V-class rocket, we could have launched thousands of tons of cargo to orbit using existing rockets.
  
  A particularly glaring example of this was a NASA study on the development of the Falcon 9 vehicle which found that NASA would have priced the development of the vehicle for ten times [soylentnews.org] what SpaceX actually spent on it! That's not counting the inevitable cost overruns and delays which SpaceX experienced and NASA would have yet to experience!
  
  In the past, I've been accused of NASA bashing. But stuff like this happened throughout NASA's existence. It's not a fluke.

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