Don't fall for the clickbait reporting here. Musk has a history of making comically exaggerated claims. There won't be a million satellites just like there wasn't a 4000 km/h train, self-driving tunnel network, intercontinental rocket transport or Mars colony.
this post was submitted on 25 Mar 2026
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It's still infuriating that he could theoretically make the WALL-E earth a reality
But there will be more satellites, and not just from SpaceX. They are already disturbing astronomers work, and it will only get worse.
There was no real debate about whether the world population is ok with it. Big corp has money, big corp acts for its interest and nothing else.
And I'm not denying the benefits of low-orbit satellites and having vast but lowly populated areas at last getting access to a fast Internet. I'm jùst pointing out that this whole thing is happening mostly out of control (or very very few control).
If you add that now international laws was shot and its body discarded in the toilet, also note that getting too much dependent on these satellites makes you very vulnerable to a military strike. I have no doubt that Russia, China and other countries (Iran?) are actively working on satellites destruction, with or without creating debris and giving us a Kessler syndrom. If you look at climate change, on-going life mass extinction, water scarcity, etc. there is little doubt that world leaders will make the worst possible decisions in the name of pragmatism (or religion, but it doesn't really matter).
Of all the permanent and irreparable things big corporations are doing to our world, I struggle to really put this high up. Yeah it sucks, but it provides a useful service and they naturally degrade. If anything Im more worried about all the pollution from them burning up in the atmosphere. If they stop launching them, the sky will be clear within the deccade.
Now I'm curious. Can a satellite fly over a country without permission? I know that an aircraft can't. How far up from the Earth's surface does sovereignity end?
There are international rules though i'm not sure either, if 50 Km or less or more.
However high they can shoot
List of Starlink and Starshield Launches - Wikipedia
~10,000 Satellites currently orbiting right now, and that's just Starlink.
Check out the list of launches under "Falcon 9 Launches > Starlink Launches." It's every other day now (sometimes consecutive days) that they launch another rocket, and each payload is carrying 20 to 60 satellites.
Starlink is 2/3rds of all satellites. They add 5-6 per day, lose one per day.
Don’t get mad. Think of the shareholders.
Monty Burns approves.
i cannot describe how angry i would be at this shit.
Every day, these guys make our life worse and destroy what we love.
Why watch the night sky when you can watch these new exciting ads on your phone?
i am angry at the idea. want to share angers?
meet me at the launch site with some molotovs, we got some anger to share.
you know those water balloon slingshots?
Just need the Kessler syndrome to put a stop to it all.
Doesn't make visibility better!
Does that apply to LEO? Seems to be self clearing in the medium term
It has always applied to LEO. Scifi media transformed it into the idea of "nothing will ever be able to leave the planet ever again" but the original studies that the phrase originated from included LEO. Despite the fact that there is enough atmosphere that a lot of the debris would experience sufficient drag for the orbit to decay within several years, not decdes or millenia, it would still have huge impacts.
I was like wtf does this have to do with law enforcement 🤦🤦🤦
Yes it does because parts of LEO have such low air resistance that the junk will stay up there for a very long time. However, I think part of how the Starlink satellites work is being so low that they do deorbit pretty quickly.
I was a space kid, followed every space shot since 1965, was a super fan of Apollo 11, I had a subscription to Nat Geo growing up, just for the Space photos.
So I can't believe I'm saying this: Maybe we've gone far enough for now, and we should have a moratorium on space for the next 50 years.
We should concentrate on Earth for awhile, dontcha think?
This isn't really space science related, just commercialization. And about focusing on Earth: we should let scientists work on what they're passionate about, IMO they'll be more motivated to research their field of choice
we should let scientists work on what they're passionate about
*fund them
Why is it always 100x more on useless destruction and military? And yeah i know the answer already.
True, that is how we got unit 731.
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I dunno, every engineer not working on space almost certainly ends up optimizing some sort of ad delivery system. The tech industry is almost completely enshittified.
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Elon Musk is such a goddamned literal supervillain that he managed to make the theme of Firefly wrong.
Apparently, they can take the sky from you.
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