Elon Musk is filling the sky with his satellites...

[Pluvious]

Starlink currently has 6,784 satellites in orbit, according to space dot com.

Overall, there are 11,000 total satellites in orbit from all sources,
so Starlink now accounts for half of all of them.

Musk's goal is to launch 42,000 in all and every week he launches another 55 into orbit.

Here is a time lapse of the sky over Arizona taken by National Geographic.
All those lines are Starlink satellites.


Future Super villain, or blessing for humanity ?

The cynical side in me thinks...

Get people used to being connected via Starlink,
then control the information that flows through it.
Cut off countries he doesn't agree with (see Ukraine).

---
"Not having Super Heroes wouldn't be so bad if Super Villains didn't really exist"
-Kick Ass

[Irish_Dem]

1. Musk, Putin, Trump. What could go wrong?

[Autumn]

2. What happens when all those fuckers come down? They will eventually come down.

[Cheezoholic]

7. They are of a small enough mass that they will burn up on re-entry, a requirement before they could even be launched

Their life cycle is around 5 years or less and they all have small maneuvering rockets on them to give them very small boosts to keep them from falling and so they can be quickly de-orbited at any time if needed . They also are in a very low earth orbit (LEO) to stay out of the way of other more important, bigger and longer duration LEO systems i.e. the ISS. This low LEO also means if the very small stabilization thrusters fail the small satellite will naturally de-orbit in a week or 2. All of these safe guards were required of StarLink and SpaceX by the Feds which is a big reason Eloon, as any rich exploitational fuck, hates regulation. While the number of these is quite large the particular LEO they are in could be swept clean of these things in a couple weeks if need be.
That being said they do make the launch of any systems into either the standard LEO or beyond a bit more difficult as launches need to be timed to get through the StarLink "web" if you will as they travel another 100 to 300 miles or farther above them because like anything in LEO they are cooking along at 17k mph and even as small as they are thats still quite a bit of energy if they hit something.

I'm not as concerned with Eloons little tinfoil radio satellites down low as much as I am with the LEO heights where things like the ISS fly. Once we de-orbit ISS here in about 5 to 10 years we need to seriously re-think having humans in the LEO areas above these little radio satellites at all. I believe it will be way to dangerous at the current rate we are launching heavy satellites. A scenario like the movie Gravity is a very very real possibility and it will be a very big deal if it happens and it's up there with pandemics in the things serious governments don't want to wake up to. Its getting far to dangerous for people to be buzzing around in those orbits with 1-2 ton satellites and everything else crowding the space going 17k mph.

If Mankind doesn't take care of the LEO ranges (LEO IS a natural environment and that IS what we do to natural environments, POLLUTE them shit out of them until they're useless) of 250 miles and up we could end up with so much debris from collisions we will be lucky to get 1 out of 10 launches through it and we will lose most of the ways we currently communicate. It would be a disaster decades long.

[snowybirdie]

3. Son in law, a banker

says a Musk satellite will control his banks operations soon. What could go wrong?

[Snarkoleptic]

4. Meanwhile, Russian 'shadow fleet' ships are cutting fiber optic data and electrical power cables.

Musk, Trump, and Putin have been chatting, now all of these data and power cables are being cut?
I'm sure sycophants will promote Musk's Starlink as the only reasonable alternative.

https://www.ft.com/content/0c208ac1-f416-41b2-a373-ec7f90b84ca8

Finland suspects an oil tanker that is part of Russia’s so-called shadow fleet of damaging an underwater electricity cable and three communication cables, opening an investigation into the vessel for aggravated sabotage.

The Eagle S was seized and boarded by Finnish authorities on Thursday, a day after the Estlink 2 subsea electricity cable in the Gulf of Finland was disconnected.

The tanker, which is registered in the Cook Islands and is carrying oil from Russia to Egypt according to ship tracking data, was seen passing over the cable at the time of the incident.

[Snarkoleptic]

5. Here's another "cut cable" piece from last month-

https://archive.is/GGo34 (NYT - archived - no paywall)

Germany’s defense minister on Tuesday called the severing of two fiber-optic cables in the Baltic Sea an act of sabotage aimed at European countries that are supporting Ukraine in its war against Russia.

One undersea cable connecting Finland and Germany was cut on Monday and the other, which runs between Lithuania and Sweden, was severed late Sunday. The damage disrupted some data transfers but did not endanger the internet connection or security of any of the countries, authorities said.

“Nobody believes that these cables were severed by accident,” Germany’s minister of defense, Boris Pistorius, told reporters ahead of a meeting of European security officials in Brussels.

[jojog]

6. Look up Kessler Syndrome

Space could become so dense with shrapnel that it becomes unusable.