XPost: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, alt.survival, alt.politics.usa
XPost: sci.space
On 2/26/23 1:12 PM, 25A.I868 wrote:
China aims to launch nearly 13,000 satellites to ‘suppress’ Elon Musk’s Starlink
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/3211438/china-aims-launch-nearly-13000-satellites-suppress-elon-musks-starlink-researchers-say
The satellite constellation is likely to be launched quickly to prevent SpaceX from hogging ‘low-orbit resources’, according to PLA
space scientists
For once, they may have a fair case here. Musk HAS been
hogging low-orbit, launching thousands of his mini-sats
for StarLink and planning to launch thousands more. There
have been considerable complaints from astronomers already
and China isn't the first to complain Musk is "using up"
that entire orbital tier as if he owns it.
However China has the capability of competing ... and they
don't have to go begging to any US courts or reg agencies.
However for astronomers and perhaps as a SAFETY thing for
anybody else trying to get something above and beyond -
low-orbit has become a sort of mine-field. How do you
get something up without smacking into one of these
little sats on the way ??? A few sats you can work around,
but not 10/20/50 thousand. The timing to miss 'em
becomes too tight. Any collisions will add a large amount
of shrapnel to the mix that'll take years to come down.
Sorry, but "high density" in any orbital tier is gonna
have to be banned by international law.
--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
* Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)