Here's my list of actions (which I frame carefully by saying "when I hear a depressing talk, I want a list of things I can do myself immediately. If you are like that, pick one or two of these and run with it! If not, no guilt!")
Giant, powerful corporations like SpaceX will respond to only 2 things: legislation (which is very slow, and is now totally not going to happen in the US), and consumer pressure.
If you have alternatives, DO NOT USE STARLINK.
If you do not have alternatives (I live in rural Canada, I know how crappy rural internet is), tell Starlink, as a paying customer, that you want them to do a better job with orbital safety, atmospheric pollution, and light pollution. Tell them you want their satellites to be smaller, and you want them to provide service with fewer satellites.
They will listen more to you as a paying customer than to me as a complaining astronomer.
But the talk for professionals ended with mostly stunned silence and a room full of overwhelmed scientists. The week after next I'll be giving this talk to 3 physics departments, so I need to think carefully about this response.
Was it because they are all so busy that suggesting even one more thing to do is overwhelming? (Possible)
Was it because the list of actions I suggest are rather futile?
Was it climate grief, but for the night sky?
#ProfSamLectureTour
Here's my list of actions (which I frame carefully by saying "when I hear a depressing talk, I want a list of things I can do myself immediately. If you are like that, pick one or two of these and run with it! If not, no guilt!")
Giant, powerful corporations like SpaceX will respond to only 2 things: legislation (which is very slow, and is now totally not going to happen in the US), and consumer pressure.
If you have alternatives, DO NOT USE STARLINK.
This week I gave nearly the same talk to amateur astronomers (Monday) and to professional astronomers (Thursday). It's super depressing, all about satellites crashing in orbit, pieces falling on us on the ground, atmospheric pollution and how the law really doesn't help us at all with any of this.
While the talk for amateurs was depressing, everyone kept their spirits up, and seemed somewhat energized by the list of possible actions I provided at the end of the talk.
#ProfSamLectureTour
But the talk for professionals ended with mostly stunned silence and a room full of overwhelmed scientists. The week after next I'll be giving this talk to 3 physics departments, so I need to think carefully about this response.
Was it because they are all so busy that suggesting even one more thing to do is overwhelming? (Possible)
Was it because the list of actions I suggest are rather futile?
Was it climate grief, but for the night sky?
#ProfSamLectureTour
This week I gave nearly the same talk to amateur astronomers (Monday) and to professional astronomers (Thursday). It's super depressing, all about satellites crashing in orbit, pieces falling on us on the ground, atmospheric pollution and how the law really doesn't help us at all with any of this.
While the talk for amateurs was depressing, everyone kept their spirits up, and seemed somewhat energized by the list of possible actions I provided at the end of the talk.
#ProfSamLectureTour
Super busy today, but just have to quickly share that this morning, I woke up at a friend's house, under a skylight, and was delighted to see stars above me for nearly the first time this whole BC trip (lots of clouds here)!
And literally 10 seconds later, I saw a fucking Starlink train! Through the skylight!!! AUGH.
Also I am flattered that too many journalists contact me, but why did a CBC journalist ask me to comment on a spacewalk that has been cancelled due to medical concerns? (I am very much the wrong kind of Dr. to comment on medical stuff in space!!)
Super busy today, but just have to quickly share that this morning, I woke up at a friend's house, under a skylight, and was delighted to see stars above me for nearly the first time this whole BC trip (lots of clouds here)!
And literally 10 seconds later, I saw a fucking Starlink train! Through the skylight!!! AUGH.
If you want a preview (or are among the 99.9999% of people who aren't able to watch in person), here's a nicely recorded talk I gave almost a year ago (RASC Toronto uses VDO ninja! Good open-source stuff).
The numbers of satellites and pieces of debris on the ground have been updated, as well as adding a short discussion of the CRASH Clock, but it's all basically the same message: https://www.youtube.com/live/6MDI7rEgb6g
My talk went very well, what a great group of people! RASC Victoria hosts an informal hybrid "astro cafe" every week!! After my talk was over, one person gave a super interesting talk about what's happening inside a particular nebula image, someone talked about the upcoming Artemis mission, and someone talked about interstellar rockets and played a song on a slide guitar they wrote about it! That was delightful
Plus, I got to meet at least 3 people from mastodon in person. Excellent!
I really really hate QR codes. But a lot of people really like them. And they're useful during a talk for the people who really like them (I'm also including the text of the link, though, dammit!)
But... I have never done this before, and a lot of the "free QR code generators" look kind of scammy and I don't want to give people weird viruses or spam. So... fediverse, help!
I am up at the observatory in Victoria today (and for the whole week)! It is really fun to see a whole bunch of people I used to work with when I was a postdoc here, and be in a building that is completely full of astronomers!! Quite a change from Saskatchewan where I am the only professional research astronomer in the entire province... (Also it's sunny again and I want to go hike. But I will get some writing and emailing and talk-organizing done first...)
#ProfSamLectureTour
My talk on "Astronomy vs. the Billionaire Space Race" is for the RASC Victoria chapter's weekly astronomy cafe, and is open to the public (though you are encouraged to join the RASC. If you like astronomy stuff they are a great group!)
More info about the location (the Fairfield Community Centre in Victoria at 7pm) and the meeting my talk will be part of is here: https://victoria.rasc.ca/astronomy-cafe/
#ProfSamLectureTour
If you want a preview (or are among the 99.9999% of people who aren't able to watch in person), here's a nicely recorded talk I gave almost a year ago (RASC Toronto uses VDO ninja! Good open-source stuff).
The numbers of satellites and pieces of debris on the ground have been updated, as well as adding a short discussion of the CRASH Clock, but it's all basically the same message: https://www.youtube.com/live/6MDI7rEgb6g
Prof. Sam Lawler