Cowboy Space (I hate their name so much) published their consolidated response a week ago but we just noticed it.
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Sure, completely untested, brand-fucking-new company that has never built or launched a satellite. You can definitely launch 20,000 of the biggest satellites ever built.
Oh apparently their first demo mission is scheduled for OCTOBER 2026? Gosh these guys are fucking unreal. The mission is listed as "power beaming demonstration"
What does that even fucking mean? Guess they're going to fry some birds and maybe some pilots? Hm. Watch for that I guess.
@sundogplanets The power beaming thing would presumably involve tech such as that from this company (perhaps even this very company, I don’t know): https://powerlighttech.com/
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Bond villains yes you need to start calling them bond villains! Specter!
Start ridiculing them as boys who watched James Bond flicks and wanted it to be Spectre
@GhostOnTheHalfShell @sundogplanets I actually got a note today from a compsci guy I've known for many, many years asking if those things could be repurposed to actually burn stuff on the ground. So this is already in people's minds.
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HAHAHA wow apparently they shouldn't have to provide any kind of debris mitigation plan because they haven't built the satellites yet.
OK but like... why are you filing if you haven't built the fucking satellites yet?? Weren't you complaining earlier about "warehousing" orbits? WHAT ARE YOU FUCKING DOING RIGHT NOW HMMMM??
Then they go on to say that the FCC shouldn't have to think about aggregate collision risk. Just consider one satellite at a time please, ignore the other 19,999
And then there's a whole section where they say that the FCC isn't allowed to consider environmental regulations, and they point to Reflect Orbital getting approved where the FCC specifically said they're not allowed to consider anything except radio broadcasts. This section might actually make me cry.
Next section is just... complaining, I think?
And then they end with saying that clearly they need to be approved.
Fuck you, FCC. Kessler Syndrome is on you.
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@ScottMGS Not the CEOs of certain companies and certain billionaires. Many of them are pathologic narcissists or act otherwise against social behaviour. If a wolf acted like this, the pack would exclude them.
@NatureMC @sundogplanets Good point.
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@sundogplanets Their demo video is not reassuring: https://youtu.be/xt_Kn4DggPg?t=122
@lauren HA
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Apparently ALL the opposition letters mentioned how 20,000 bright satellites would absolutely destroy astronomy, so that's nice.
Ok, well, this section is 100% gaslighting, which I expected. "No no no, radio astronomers, you are overreacting! We will totally not clobber your bands and we magically don't have harmonics or unintended radio emissions, despite not having actually ever built a satellite before. Also we'll use lasers to fix everything. Radio astronomers, shut up."
@sundogplanets
Isn't laser communication hard? Like I feel aligning the lasers and receivers on 20000 satellites is kinda a hard thing, even if you don't have annoying disturbances by air.
I'd assume this is a problem a firm never having built any space tech wouldn't just solve. -
"While one commenter derides Cowboy Space’s approach to data centers as mere 'avoidance' of terrestrial environmental regulation"
Uh yep that was me (via @space_environmentalism)
The rest of that section appears to be greenwashing, IN SPAAAACE!
@sundogplanets @space_environmentalism
I think we need to make videos of Link Hogthrob doing spoof promotions of these things to show their idiocy.
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And then there's a whole section where they say that the FCC isn't allowed to consider environmental regulations, and they point to Reflect Orbital getting approved where the FCC specifically said they're not allowed to consider anything except radio broadcasts. This section might actually make me cry.
Next section is just... complaining, I think?
And then they end with saying that clearly they need to be approved.
Fuck you, FCC. Kessler Syndrome is on you.
@sundogplanets I think I need to do another piece on this for my weekly national radio report. Just proposed it to the network for Monday -- they almost never don't approve these.
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"While one commenter derides Cowboy Space’s approach to data centers as mere 'avoidance' of terrestrial environmental regulation"
Uh yep that was me (via @space_environmentalism)
The rest of that section appears to be greenwashing, IN SPAAAACE!
Drake shielding his face: Solar power
Drake smiling and pointing: Solar power in SPAAAACE!
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Sure, completely untested, brand-fucking-new company that has never built or launched a satellite. You can definitely launch 20,000 of the biggest satellites ever built.
Oh apparently their first demo mission is scheduled for OCTOBER 2026? Gosh these guys are fucking unreal. The mission is listed as "power beaming demonstration"
What does that even fucking mean? Guess they're going to fry some birds and maybe some pilots? Hm. Watch for that I guess.
@sundogplanets Buy mylar futures!
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Ooo actual quote "AAS’s concerns are unfounded"
Top-notch gaslighting. Nope the professional astronomers definitely don't know what they're talking about. Ooo it gets better:
"Nevertheless, Cowboy Space commits to coordination with National Science Foundation (“NSF”) and will work to mitigate potential impacts on radio astronomy before they arise."
We totally don't need to do this because there won't be any problems but we'll talk to NSF about the problems that we totally won't have.
@sundogplanets
… not really wild about having to trust nsf.GOV to represent radio astronomers’ interests in the current environment, either … -
Cowboy Space (I hate their name so much) published their consolidated response a week ago but we just noticed it. EDIT: It was due at 5pm EDT today. So... I guess I have to read this shit. Swearing a lot here will get me through it.
A reminder: this is the 4th company that wants to launch fucking enormous "AI data center" satellites into sun-synchronous terminator orbits, giving Earth a ring. This particular company wants 20,000 satellites in one ring.
@sundogplanets maybe it’s time for a not for profit ‘Terminator’ company crowd funded to deorbit a bunch of these into the originators launch facilities. The technology to deorbit ( sorry is this the right word? ) it shouldn’t be that complex, but you just want to grab a few of them at the same time to save costs. After all if FCC can’t regulate them no one can be regulated for deorbitting them.
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After modelling this in detail, I can say that that these companies can't even do basic geometry, apparently. They want tens of thousands of satellites to have 24 hour sunlight, so sun-synchronous terminator orbits, baybeeee!
But as Hugh Lewis pointed out (I know, ew, linkedin sorry) https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/sun-always-shines-tv-hugh-lewis-tlkbe/ IT DOESN'T FUCKING WORK unless you're above 1400km altitude. And then you're not in the *magical* low-latency low-altitude zone that these companies actually want for fast comms.
@sundogplanets That's really basic orbital stuff. Even *I* know it 🤪
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WOW it gets even more whimsical and hand-wavy in the orbital debris section. Actual quote: "Certain commenters raise concerns regarding the extent of the orbital debris mitigation information provided in the application but ignore Cowboy Space’s steadfast commitment to operating
safely."In other words: "Why won't scientists believe the words that we wrote down without any actual data, information, citations, or sketches?"
@sundogplanets I note that in my engineering job, we call people "cowboys" as a pejorative, to describe someone who hasn't done solid calculations and is making decisions based on vibes
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And then there's a whole section where they say that the FCC isn't allowed to consider environmental regulations, and they point to Reflect Orbital getting approved where the FCC specifically said they're not allowed to consider anything except radio broadcasts. This section might actually make me cry.
Next section is just... complaining, I think?
And then they end with saying that clearly they need to be approved.
Fuck you, FCC. Kessler Syndrome is on you.
@sundogplanets what gets me is these satellites don't stay over were they are launched so America says yes go ahead and trash the atmosphere or crash wherever you fancy and the rest of the world is not raising a whimper it seems
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And then there's a whole section where they say that the FCC isn't allowed to consider environmental regulations, and they point to Reflect Orbital getting approved where the FCC specifically said they're not allowed to consider anything except radio broadcasts. This section might actually make me cry.
Next section is just... complaining, I think?
And then they end with saying that clearly they need to be approved.
Fuck you, FCC. Kessler Syndrome is on you.
Bigger picture: What about other potential effects? What happens when we have an upper atmosphere chock full of metal and exotic chem particles? And sats that outshine everything in the sky by order of mag? What else breaks or is degraded?
The Aurorae?
Earth's albedo?
Sat-ground radio comms?
Ground-ground radio?
Raincloud / storm formation? Lightning intensity?
Etc.Scientists used to worry that atomics might burn the sky. Maybe these are accelerants.
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@sundogplanets I think I need to do another piece on this for my weekly national radio report. Just proposed it to the network for Monday -- they almost never don't approve these.
@lauren Let me know if you want any info or want to chat about it - there are now over 2 million satellites proposed
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Sure, completely untested, brand-fucking-new company that has never built or launched a satellite. You can definitely launch 20,000 of the biggest satellites ever built.
Oh apparently their first demo mission is scheduled for OCTOBER 2026? Gosh these guys are fucking unreal. The mission is listed as "power beaming demonstration"
What does that even fucking mean? Guess they're going to fry some birds and maybe some pilots? Hm. Watch for that I guess.
I lately heard a project for new flat-panel beamforming antennas being promoted as "beamed power".
There is evidently no abuse of language that is too absurd for someone to commit.
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This company also posted an ex parte filing (which means they had a super special extra FCC meeting), their satellites are too fucking huge to even be physically possible. They just can't fucking do this.
My estimate from looking at this ridiculous sketch is 8x60x10m solar panels... that's a reflecting area of 4800 m^2. The International Space Station, the biggest thing in orbit, has a solar panel area of about 3400 m^2.
@sundogplanets clearly you’re missing the point, the company doesn’t need to be successful for the founders to become multimillionaires. It just needs to sound feasible enough to fool the VCs so they can pay themselves ridiculous amounts of money and then ‘fail’ for a few years. Then they declare bankruptcy and walk away with all that money.
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@lauren Let me know if you want any info or want to chat about it - there are now over 2 million satellites proposed
@sundogplanets Just DM'd you.
