Many of my colleagues in astronomy, both professional and amateur, are vocal in their opposition to Starlink, the SpaceX project that is placing thousands of satellites in orbit. They complain that imaging and other data gathering has been harmed or ruined by the tracks of these devices.
What if Earth had a ring and these tracks were a consequence of our natural situation? Would the astronomers curse the ring and demand its destruction?
They want it stopped. They want the UN to do something. They vilify Elon Musk. They call the satellites junk and pollution. This is not merely a matter of a difficult technical problem like the construction of the Panama Canal or going to the Moon. It is an emotionally motivated attack on material progress, capitalism, and one audacious entrepreneur.
If no one wanted these things, they would not be launched. The project cost is estimated at $30 billion (Reuters here.) It could fail, ultimately. Enterprise entails is risk. In fact, absent risk, there would be no enterprise. (Against the Gods: the Remarkable Story of Risk by Peter L. Bernstein reviewed here.) However, the basic fact of a perceived market still exists.
One of my first university classes in sociology studied the workplace in America. The professor was a nice enough guy but accepted the usual complaint that corporations advertise to motivate to buy and do things that we do not really want. I understand. I certainly was never motivated to buy and drink Mountain Dew though millions of people have been. So, I went out online and found some easy examples of famously failed products. When vitamin-enhanced bottled water was first introduced, it failed, and was mocked in the advertising trade magazines. Starlink could fail.
But it is not the first communication satellite. That honor goes to OSCAR-1 launched for the Amateur Radio Relay League six months before AT&T’s Telstar. So, these satellites have been “polluting” astronomical images for sixty years. No one seemed to care.
I believe that the detractors of progress are privileged and satisfied, enjoying their own comforts, and now wanting to deny those benefits to others. Back in the 1960s, one mock on British Labour was “Sod you, Jack. I’ve got mine.” Ludwig von Mises sketched out well the anti-capitalist mentality (Mises Institute here) as being motivated by envy and jealousy.
What if Earth had a natural ring? Other planets do. The four giants, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune have rings. Smaller planets do, also. The minor planet of Chariklo, Centaur 2006 Chiron, and trans-Neptunian minor planet Haumea all have rings. (See Caltech News here.) Ontologically, Earth could as well. If we did and if views of the other planets, the stars, nebulae, etc., etc. were occasionally blocked or photographic plates captured their tracks what would be the response?
Would astronomers wish for (or demand) a massive anti-satellite program? No one seems to be calling for weather modification to clear the sky of clouds on nights that astronomers want to work from their visual observatories. (Radio astronomy is not affected by clouds and rain.)
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