What the actual fuck.

Prof. Sam Lawler

What the actual fuck. It's not April Fools Day, right? This is real?! Fuck you, SpaceX. Maybe this will help regulators realize how fucking shortsighted companies' plans in orbit are?

Surely the FCC won't rubber-stamp-approve this one??... ONE MILLION STARLINKS FUUUUCCCKKKKKK

SpaceX Eyes 1 Million Satellites for Orbital Data Center Push

In a late Friday FCC filing, the company mentions deploying a staggering 'one million satellites' in orbits ranging from 500 kilometers to 2,000km.

PCMag Australia (au.pcmag.com)

Carolyn

@sundogplanets The FCC is corrupt. What I don’t understand is how US gets to decide this for the world.

Prof. Sam Lawler

"Launching a constellation of a million satellites that operate as orbital data centers is a first step toward becoming a Kardashev II-level situation"

THIS IS IN AN FCC FILING NOT A SCIENCE FICTION NOVEL WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK I'M DEAD

España Bizarra

@sundogplanets So now Musk wants to jump in the data center wagon, so he can get VC funding. Too late, that bubble will burst this very same year.

kwayk42

@sundogplanets that's it... Imma build a rail gun that can shoot down those satellites

lord pthenq1

@sundogplanets
For the data centers.

They will orbit in the sunrise line (I don't know how to call it) between 509 km and the sector where there's enough radiation to be unworthy.

Earth will have a ring

Doug Wade

@kwayk42 @sundogplanets I love the enthusiasm but that would be speed running Kessler syndrome

Eye

@CStamp @sundogplanets

This!

kwayk42

@dougwade @sundogplanets so... I should design incendiary rounds is what you're saying?

At this point the only way out is through, unless someone wants to build giant nets to try and clean up space debris

Spycrab

@sundogplanets need more deorbit star link propaganda

mkj

@sundogplanets One… million… satellites!? 🤯

Even ignoring all the *other* issues…

I imagine those wouldn't exactly be tiny cubesats. So how does 30 per launch sound? Build enough of those satellites and launchers to maintain a launch cadence of one launch per day, and that kind of a constellation is *90 years off* per my calculator. Assuming no failed launches and no failures in-orbit and no replacements needed for that time, naturally. And they'll cram all that into sun-synch orbits? WTAF?

Kiloku - Secretário do Caos

@sundogplanets not that it matters, but it also wouldn't budge a thing in the kardashev scale, as it's supposed to measure how much power civilization can harness, and they certainly would pale in comparison to the total amount of earth based computing power, not to mention all the power used in non-computing usage

Spycrab

@kwayk42 @dougwade @sundogplanets um actually, giant nets are a order of magnitude better idea that shooting satellites. Grapple arms and foam are also options. /srs

mkj

@kwayk42 Nudge one a kilometer off position and hello our old friend Kessler.

@sundogplanets

kwayk42

@spycrab @dougwade @sundogplanets but I can still shoot them once they're caught in a net though right?

#JustWannaBuildARailgun

Ángela Stella Matutina

@pthenq1 @sundogplanets

The sunrise/sunset line is the terminator. So, Sun-synchronous (i.e., passes every day at the same local solar time) LEO on the plane of the terminator.

Whatever it's called, it's a horrible idea. Want a ringed planet, you know where to find it. One of these days they will come up with a clever (?) plan to dismantle the Moon to give old Earth a ring too... until the rocks start colliding with each other and decaying into our atmosphere.

mkj

I really can't help but feel that someone, somewhere, saw the term "megaconstellation" and said "let's have an *actual* mega-constellation!"

@sundogplanets

RootWyrm 🇺🇦:progress:

@sundogplanets I would ask if you were fucking serious and why the FCC hasn't thrown it out, but calling the people left there "clownshoes" is an unforgivable insult to the footwear of professional entertainers.

Also, worth noting, that isn't even fucking *ZERO* on the Kardashev because that's not even a goddamn relevant scale. Please somebody start fucking executing these techbro oligarchs to save the rest of us.

Hugh Ferguson

@sundogplanets at this number of satellites, we're in the domain where the Russians and Chinese might start shooting them down as they would take up orbital real estate for their own networks to compete with Starlink

🍋 Superball ☀️

@kwayk42 🤭🤍

Wandering Adventure Party

What the actual fuck.