Star Chain

Another nice day, pity I have to work....

We were all setup to watch the Starlink satellites go over tonight about 8.35pm, and we seen quite a few before the disappeared behind some light clouds. I can't wait to see them clearly lined up. There are 422 up there now with up to 30,000 planned and they are intended for global internet access - no more phone line, just a dish pointing to the sky. 60 were launched tonight and it might have been possible to even see the spaceship that took them up.

I had been aware of discussions about satellites offering internet access, but I had not realised it has already started until a few days ago. Apparently USA and Canada will be able to use it by the end of this year, rolling out to the rest of the world in the following 2 years. Already there is a fuss over light pollution from them as they can be clearly seen whizzing over - if there are 10s of thousands then the night sky will be full of them. Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX suggested it might be temporary as they satellite mirrors calibrate, although he says they are working on "fixes". Obviously there are already about 5000 satellites orbiting and it is difficult to see the majority of them but it's going to feel like a new age when we start to see the sky full of them.

It got me thinking it's like the Wild West up there on a corporate scale... the massive companies are just going to fill the sky with them until it's "full". They'll be going to the moon next...