Cowboy Space (I hate their name so much) published their consolidated response a week ago but we just noticed it.
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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.
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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 this company and business proposal just looks like the most obvious investor scam ever. Big expensive plans jumping on the latest bandwagon to get megabucks investment, most of which will disappear in accounting tricks and losses but mysteriously end up in the pockets of the founders. Retire early and enjoy the cash.
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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.
Now I am wondering what the penalty is for knowingly making false statements in response to official comments.
But that would require regulators who actually enforce the rules.
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@sundogplanets I'm absolutely convinced it's a scam for getting investment funding. Thats all they have now. Look at the SpaceX IPO vs today. 1/2d in 'value' and the early investors don't care cos they made out when it listed on the stock market.
It's just a super fancy version of the Nigerian Prince scam.
(See also reflect @#£%ing Orbital)
@sundogplanets oh HANG ON... this is about building speculative asset classes of orbital space, so it can be sold to people who DO actually want to put satelites up into ( or maybe just intersecting) those orbits.
Like the 'air rights' or whatever its called over New York, for sky scrapers.
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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.
Even as they present larger targets for debris, avoidance-maneuvering these cumbersome objects in a reasonable timeframe will be difficult not only in terms of propellant consumption but possibly also structural fatigue. How many maneuvers will be needed over their lifespans? (which begs the question: what's the 1OO% reliable disposal plan, because for the long term it _has_ to be 100%)
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@sundogplanets This is so colossally stupid. Like, I know AI + Space! is a perfect VC honeypot but has anyone even thought about the fact that GPUs go out of date inside like 2-3 years? Are they really planning to launch 10,000 satellites per year indefinitely?
Also, has anyone given ANY thought to radiation hardening? GPUs of the sort that people are using for AI are typically manufactured on a 3nm process or so. Most orbital hardware which we actually want to keep running is manufactured on like 50nm because radiation absolutely destroys tiny circuits.
But I'm sure it'll be fine...
@faithisleaping as someone who has worked on actual space flight software for actual space flight hardware where you have to implement redundant compute and memory processes with majority wins voting to determine what the correct answer is....just sigh. @sundogplanets
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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 hey there is a whole bunch of NATO research money available for war technologies, if we spin deorbitting technology as a defense tool to knock out bad guys satellites, the same technology could be used to clean up the sky. I’m clearly loving this idea way too much.
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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 My guess is the next thing companies will be talking about is building AI centres on the sunny side of the Moon.
Sure, signals would be slower, but someone will have an application where slightly slower speeds are ok. -
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 fuck
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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.
Wait. Are they saying that they are magically going to build an entire new rocket in 3 months?
This really is quite the scam.
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@sundogplanets How much of this sort of thing (these guys, Reflect Orbital, etc.) do you think is just VCs throwing money at something they think is cool, with the companies behind it knowing it'll never work? And how much is just plain idiocy in action, with them genuinely believing it WILL work?
@andy @sundogplanets could it be a ruse, like asking your dad for £100 loan when you actually want £50. And will a second company put in a more reasonable ask by comparison and get looked at favourably when they might not have otherwise?
