Viasat once again demands government block its competitor Starlink
In a letter to the FCC submitted on May 2, 2022, Viasat once again demanded the government block the deployment of SpaceX’s full 30,000 Starlink satellite constellation.
SpaceX shouldn’t be allowed to greatly expand its Starlink network while light pollution issues surrounding its deployed satellites remain unresolved, Jarrett Taubman, Viasat vice president and deputy chief of government affairs, said in a letter to the regulator.
While calls for a thorough environmental review that Viasat made for Starlink’s current generation of satellites in December 2020 were largely rejected, Taubman said SpaceX’s plan to grow the constellation by seven times “would have significant aesthetic, scientific, social and cultural, and health effects on the human environment on Earth.”
In other words, rather than try to compete with SpaceX, Viasat wants the government to squelch that competition. Though Viasat’s previous complaints have been rejected entirely, there is no guarantee that the Biden administration will continue to reject them. Recent evidence suggests instead that it will instead use this complaint as another opportunity to limit SpaceX’s operations, for political reasons.
Meanwhile, the only possible harm to Earth the full Starlink constellation might do is cause a limited interference in ground-based astronomy. Since astronomers have made so little effort to get their telescopes into orbit, above such interference, few should sympathize with them. If anything, Starlink should be the spur to get all of its telescopes off the ground and into space. Astronomers will not only avoid light interference from Starlink, they will get far better data without the atmosphere smearing their vision.
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In a letter to the FCC submitted on May 2, 2022, Viasat once again demanded the government block the deployment of SpaceX’s full 30,000 Starlink satellite constellation.
SpaceX shouldn’t be allowed to greatly expand its Starlink network while light pollution issues surrounding its deployed satellites remain unresolved, Jarrett Taubman, Viasat vice president and deputy chief of government affairs, said in a letter to the regulator.
While calls for a thorough environmental review that Viasat made for Starlink’s current generation of satellites in December 2020 were largely rejected, Taubman said SpaceX’s plan to grow the constellation by seven times “would have significant aesthetic, scientific, social and cultural, and health effects on the human environment on Earth.”
In other words, rather than try to compete with SpaceX, Viasat wants the government to squelch that competition. Though Viasat’s previous complaints have been rejected entirely, there is no guarantee that the Biden administration will continue to reject them. Recent evidence suggests instead that it will instead use this complaint as another opportunity to limit SpaceX’s operations, for political reasons.
Meanwhile, the only possible harm to Earth the full Starlink constellation might do is cause a limited interference in ground-based astronomy. Since astronomers have made so little effort to get their telescopes into orbit, above such interference, few should sympathize with them. If anything, Starlink should be the spur to get all of its telescopes off the ground and into space. Astronomers will not only avoid light interference from Starlink, they will get far better data without the atmosphere smearing their vision.
Readers!
Please consider supporting my work here at Behind the Black. Your support allows me the freedom and ability to analyze objectively the ongoing renaissance in space, as well as the cultural changes -- for good or ill -- that are happening across America. Fourteen years ago I wrote that SLS and Orion were a bad ideas, a waste of money, would be years behind schedule, and better replaced by commercial private enterprise. Only now does it appear that Washington might finally recognize this reality.
In 2020 when the world panicked over COVID I wrote that the panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Only in the past year have some of our so-called experts in the health field have begun to recognize these facts.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
Just a bit of info, ViaSat owns WildBlue, a satellite internet service just like HughesNet. Believe it or not WildBlue was slower than HughesNet in my opinion. This protest was probably brought up since Starlink is being used by JSX and Hawaiian Air. For record, ViaSat is the internet connection for United Airlines. A side-note: I know that Alaska Airlines already has a lot of business deals with Amazon, so they will probably go with Kuiper.
HughesNet has made it’s deal with OneWeb and Amazon has it’s Kuiper. ViaSat is out in the cold unless it can come up with it’s own LEO constellation of satellites.
They can also hire SpaceX to launch their orbital satellites at a greatly reduced price!
…wah…..
..nobody wookin….. .WAH!!!
Those who can do, do.
Those who can’t do, don’t.
Speaking of astronomers’ public antipathy toward Starlink, I notice that the latest (April 2022, published Apr. 22) issue of the journal Nature Astronomy includes several pieces devoted to astronomers’ flag-waving lobbying for “woke” agendas such as ensuring that astronomy is “sustainable” and doesn’t contribute 1 whit to climate change (even if research and the advancement of knowledge must be slowed). First of all, there’s the main editorial “Save the Earth… and space” in that issue.
The editorial then references several other papers: first of all, a “Perspective” article in that issue, titled “The case for space environmentalism,” makes, as it says, “the case for considering the orbital space around the Earth as an additional ecosystem, subject to the same care and concerns, and the same broad regulations as the oceans and the atmosphere, for example.” Additionally: “We should consider damage to professional astronomy, public stargazing, and the cultural importance of the sky….”
Furthermore, as the article notes in its “Main” section:
“This Perspective has its origin in an Amicus Brief submitted to the US Court of Appeal in August 2021, in support of an appeal made by several organizations against a specific order made by the US Federal Communications Commission. That order granted licence amendments for SpaceX Starlink satellites.”
That editorial in Nature Astronomy also indicates a recent (Mar. 21) article attempting to produce an “Estimate of the carbon footprint of astronomical research infrastructures” — concluding that the astronomers of the world exhibit an average carbon footprint per researcher of 36.6 +- 14.0 tons of CO2e per year! (powering supercomputers providing much of that carbon burden) — beyond that, they point to a “Focus” collection of articles (also from the previous month: Mar. 08) considering “The impact of astronomy on climate change.” OMG!
All in all, sounds like quite a campaign that’s now ramping up and underway.