Satellite swarms are threatening the night sky and creating a new zone of environmental conflict | Science | AAAS

Those five dozen satellites were just the beginning. Starlink already had permission to launch 12,000 satellites, roughly six times the number of active satellites then in orbit. The next year, the company added another 30,000. Other billionaire-backed companies Jeff Bezos s Project Kuiper, and OneWeb, funded in part by Richard Branson were planning comparable space internet swarms, leading to industry forecasts of more than 100,000 satellites in orbit by the end of the 2020s. In the best stargazing conditions, human eyes can perceive about 3000 twinkling stars overhead; if the planned satellites ended up as bright as the first Starlinks, they would fill future summer nights with a comparable number of creeping dots.

Almost overnight, a new arena of environmental conflict opened up. Astronomers weren t the only ones who saw an existential threat. Environmentalists, amateur stargazers, and Indigenous leaders working to revive astronomical traditions saw an affront to the planet s dwindling dark skies, an act as vandalistic as carving initials into a tree trunk in front of the whole world. From a cultural point of view, it is a desecration, says Rangi M t mua, a M ori cultural astronomer at Massey University, Manawatk.

via www.science.org

I’ve got to say, I really like dark skies at night. I’m hoping to retire someplace with really dark skies. I really hate the idea of putting all these satellites in orbit without somehow taking the interest of the human race in being able to contemplate the universe into account. There’s surely law on this point. I will try not to let my dislike of Bezos, Branson and to a lesser extent Musk interfere in my judgment. But, come on, man, do you really need to eff up the night sky as well as everything else you’ve effed up? Couldn’t we say the night sky is the common heritage of mankind, or some such? I’m all for private property, but just because you can launch a satellite, do that mean you own the space through which it travels, if that messes up the view billions of people had before?