What the actual fuck.

@sundogplanets This is just a VC scam.
1. The timeline on launching a million satellites, even "small" ones is decades.

2. Near vacuum isn't a magical environment for heat management.

3. Power from where exactly? And don't say sunlight cause the amount of capture panels needed would be an order of magnitude more material to power a data center.

@sundogplanets Bye, nice telescope views, etc. Hello, Kessler syndrome.

I noticed in the credits of re-watching the 4K remastering of Hard Boiled that there was some security company called Starlink, decades ago. fElon Musk couldn't even pick a name that hadn't already been used before.

IMHO, it would probably be cheaper to run fiber to the home, even in the most remote rural areas, than to pollute our skies with satellites for high latency Internet access. But, what do I know? I think last time I checked a 50km spool of single mode fiber could be bought for under $1000.

@sundogplanets The night sky will be spectacular for several decades as all the smashed bits fall back to Earth.

@sundogplanets

That would disintegrate into shrapnel in days.

The Kessler syndrome, also known as the Kessler effect,[1][2] collisional cascading, or ablation cascade, is a scenario proposed by NASA scientists Donald J. Kessler and Burton G. Cour-Palais in 1978. It describes a situation in which the density of objects in low Earth orbit (LEO) becomes so high due to space pollution that collisions between these objects cascade, exponentially increasing the amount of space debris over time.[3] This proliferation
...

collisions would accumulate faster than atmospheric drag could remove them.[4] The Kessler syndrome underscores the critical need for effective space traffic management and collision avoidance strategies to ensure the long-term viability of space exploration and use.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome#:~:text=The%20theoretical%20cascading%20Kessler%20syndrome,Starlink%2C%20the%20constellation%20of%20SpaceX.

@PalmAndNeedle @sundogplanets I think I've read that, ages ago. Time for a reread, maybe! My library has it online.

@sundogplanets

If you understand anything about the giant CF of data centers right now this is just the stupidest idea ever.

First, the lifespan of these chips runs on the order of 18 months before they are considered obsolete and the chips fry very quickly so there is a very high failure rate.

Also, the data centers power is determined by the networking of all the components in the data center.

Ask yourself if RF communication broadcast between satellites can work like wires

@sundogplanets

Well, yeah, the idea of just you know oh we’re going to now reach this science fiction milestone because reasons.

@W6KME @sundogplanets

Just so long as you remember to dodge them. The fireworks SpaceX provided last year over the Caribbean did endanger commercial flights. Now it would be brought everywhere on the planet.

@sundogplanets the performance of total seriousness, no matter how absurd the goal, is critical to tech oligarchs' "fake it til you rule the world" strategy. it rarely survives contact with reality but the damage it does is of course very real.

@sundogplanets Sounds like they used AI to generate this. The Kardashev scale is a classification of _civilization_, not "situation". I see this sort of auto-correct in lots of AI slop.

Recent news articles kept referring to Tom Human as the Border Guard.

If this wasn't so serious, I'd laugh.

@GhostOnTheHalfShell @sundogplanets SpaceX's unwillingness to be good citizens, and the US government's unwillingness to do anything about it...people are going to die eventually, and possibly a lot of them.

@sundogplanets

What people should suggest is that Elon Musk personally move himself into space to oversee the development of his glorious satellite network.

By all means, we should hurry him to the asteroid belt personally so he can collect the raw materials and then fashion the satellites. Tell him it will cut launch cost costs.

@sundogplanets Musk: Hahaha Kessler go brrr

@kwayk42 @dougwade @sundogplanets

A rail gun is completely unnecessary. As a scientist pointed out back in the good old Ronnie Reagan, Star Wars days. The way you defeat a network of satellites is to throw a bucket of sand into the right orbit.

@GhostOnTheHalfShell @W6KME @sundogplanets
Let's remember who we're talking about here...
️
https://cyberplace.social/@GossiTheDog/115989156933538439

@sundogplanets @adambecker.bsky.social brilliant book and well worth the read. Every time I hear someone mentioning one of these tech bros being intelligent I want a copy to throw at their head. Maybe we need to start explaining to politicians that if LEO is a shooting gallery it means no more GPS, do they remember what it was like navigating the world with paper maps, because we are going back there.

@teajaygrey @sundogplanets the cost of the fibre link is not mainly about the physical cable. The thing that takes time and money is getting permits for digging up roads, access through private fields, planning permission for connection points, and so on. And each new route of cable has to have this sorted from scratch, and some public authorities are slow, obstructive or just downright awkward.

@sundogplanets I’m (jokingly) pretty sure aliens are behind this stupidity. Why else would we be purposely stranding ourselves on this planet by filling up the sky with space junk?

Oh right, because we can…

Times like these I like to disassociate much more hilarious reasons than what reality actually offers, as to why things they way they are. Today it’s aliens, tomorrow? Tardigrades maybe.

@sundogplanets god damn cardassians!!!!! /s