How Starlink could help make Internet cable breaks irrelevant

[UB40]

now if Starlink had to go down, because the Chinese decided to Pollute LEO orbit running one of their A-SAT tests,
you'd be sh#t out of luck then, as if a big chunk of Satellites were knocked out, what could you do.

also nobody has talked much about Kessler syndrome, or what happened in that movie Gravity, where flying Space trash kills everybody, and makes space impossible to navigate due to the rings of trash, circling Earth. almost like Saturn.

I will take my chances

 

[Clean Green]

I will take my chances

Carefull there. My dad used to say "Kans vat is pram stoot"

 

[Brian_G]

Only one risk that I can see - issues between ICASA and Malawi etc. that might gain traction.
And sooner or later the local licensing will get sorted anyway, same as the post office and Telkom have been by the public.

What was this SA-roaming-usage "copyright" issue about a few months ago? Missed that

 

[Jet-Fighter7700]

That might be 'cos there's nothing to talk about there

A lot of less than 1% chance type options in your thinking mate..

until it happens, quite by accident,
I mean imagine a gigantic ring of trash visible from the surface, I mean with everybody and anybody launching satellites like people buying smartphones,
at some point, GPS and All these Satellite internet services could go down.

 

[Brian_G]

until it happens, quite by accident,
I mean imagine a gigantic ring of trash visible from the surface, I mean with everybody and anybody launching satellites like people buying smartphones,
at some point, GPS and All these Satellite internet services could go down.

Imagine you could die one day....

Oh, wait..

 

[Brian_G]

But @Jet-Fighter7700 firstly get at least some facts straight - the sky is HUGE. To fill that with basic trash to any noticeable degree to be visible is ridiculous nonsense, sorry mate.

 

[ponder]

Very well said

There is simply not enough bandwidth in radio, it’s simple physics.
There is reason that there is fibre cables around the world and not microwave relay towers across the world and countries.

The laser interlink is impressive but due to atmosphere you can’t do it to ground station to sat, there’s a reason we send it down a glass fibre after all.

To me this is just a very niche product that might find traction in things like high frequency trading but never replace country backbones.

Yeah but it's gonna reduce latency to the EU to local levels...

/s

 

[Jet-Fighter7700]

But @Jet-Fighter7700 firstly get at least some facts straight - the sky is HUGE. To fill that with basic trash to any noticeable degree to be visible is ridiculous nonsense, sorry mate.

the ocean is equally as big, yet there is a patch of ocean where all the plastic congregates

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch | The Ocean Cleanup

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is the largest accumulation of ocean plastic in the world and is located between Hawaii and California. Scientists of The Ocean Cleanup Foundation have conducted the most extensive analysis ever of this area.

theoceancleanup.com

so with Human beings sending more and more things into orbit,, firstly were adding more and more things that will stay up there forever, and all it takes is a event like what those Chinese did destroying their own satellite as part of a test,

2007 Chinese anti-satellite missile test - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

to make things cascade out of control, almost like a chain reaction, where one satellite hits another and another and before long LEO orbit is covered in trash traveling 100 times faster than a bullet. making our planet be surrounded by Rings of trash, almost like Saturn only with Space trash
@Brian_G , go watch Gravity that movie with Sandra Bullock, illustrates my point quite well.

my point of what I'm saying is while Starlink is cool and all, and a neat alternative to Fibre cables under the oceans,
if suddenly large parts of the system are knocked out, youll be sh#t out of luck.

kessler syndrome, where space travel is prohibitively dangerous, because of flying space debris. is a thing.

 

[Brian_G]

Wow @Jet-Fighter7700 , even for you that's deeply disturbing regarding how much fiction you've assumed to be fact. If you can't figure it out for yourself with reasonably careful personal research, get help, seriously.

 

[Brian_G]

BTW, I don't like all this space clutter either, in fact a few of us here have said so before, not sure it's necessary and it certainly adds to long term complications.

But that's all, no doomsday from this imaginary threat.

 

[Jet-Fighter7700]

Wow @Jet-Fighter7700 , even for you that's deeply disturbing regarding how much fiction you've assumed to be fact. If you can't figure it out for yourself with reasonably careful personal research, get help, seriously.

believe whatever you want to believe, I just like to think at the absolute worst case scenario, and think how probable it is,
and look with great concern when more and more tiny Satellites get launched, all waiting for that one event to make the entire thing go pear shaped very quickly.

I mean good example, SA internet went down, because of those cable breaks, sure we got rerouted and sure it wasn't down too long,
but what if that had been longer? what if it never came back? what if all the so called redundancy was a lie, and it simply stopped altogether.

improbable, possibly, but how probable was it a few cables buried deep under the ocean underground would get cut,
not very likely. but it still DID happen. so for a flake of paint from the 60's to cause a massive disruption in orbital communication, over a large part of the Earth surface, totally possible.

 

[Brian_G]

so for a flake of paint from the 60's to cause a massive disruption in orbital communication, over a large part of the Earth surface, totally possible.

That's a matter of largely different velocities involved.

But thanks for sharing I guess, I'll leave it there.